


Future Horizons

by rvst



Series: Outrun My Gun [4]
Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Western, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-04-15 09:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rvst/pseuds/rvst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lawstein Western AU</p><p>Violence,  kidnapping, and Mattie being 4000% done with Carmilla's crap.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dying and Deliberating

Fucking bank robbers.

Danny hated these three incompetent fucking assholes. She really liked her brother’s vest and they had put a pair of bullet holes in it, and she was now being forced to bleed over the only clothes she had left. Fucking bastards, all three of them. Tiny, Curly, and Crazy.

Tiny was the one who accepted her barter, one bounty for one doctor. She had the killer gleam in her eye and Danny had no doubt getting into a shootout with her in the bank would only end with the both of them dead. Carmilla would have been shot too, caught in the crossfire by stray bullets. Tiny was in charge, though she didn’t have the reigns for the horses pulling the fucking cart Danny had been forced into when they were done indiscriminately slaughtering the people in the bank.

Curly drove. Her leg bounced, she bit at her fingernails, and she kept looking over her shoulder to the three people piled on top of literal beds of money. Caretaker. The one to hold hostage in case of an escape attempt. The other two would most likely fall in line if the individual with the caretaker role was threatened. Danny filed this away for future use.

Crazy was looking at Danny like a puzzle to be torn apart, studied, and put back together. Avoid. Kill first. Manic grin that did not suggest stability. Danny wished her brain wasn’t trained to supply this kind of information.

Tiny hadn’t lowered her gun since she walked into the bank. She sat across from Danny, eyes fixated on her captive like she was made of pure gold and there was no way Danny freaking Lawrence was slipping through her fingers. Danny snorted, her bounty would be paid in gold. Papa liked to flash his wealth.

Danny silently begged that the yet-to-be-noticed bullet hole in her side would kill her soon, and more importantly, that the good doctor wouldn’t go back to the cabin for more than she absolutely need to, Papa Lawrence would be coming to check on his property, and he would kill anyone who got in his way.

“You sure you got them all?” Danny poked at the den of bears she willingly sacrificed herself to, putting on her very best happy, healthy smile. The longer she could hide her wound, the more time Carmilla would have to run from their vengeance at being cheated out of a seemingly fair deal. Bounty said she was worth nothing dead.

All three of them glared, and on they rolled. Towards a bright and shining future, for everyone but Danny herself at least.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Carmilla had seen more than her fair share of blood and gore. Mob doctoring tended to desensitise a girl to dead bodies too. But never so many, and never all at once. The bank would forever be tarnished by the inevitable smell that was sure to result from the death and destruction the bank robbers had wrought.

Stumbling down the stairs towards the door and fresh air, Carmilla nearly made it the entire way out of the building without collecting her money. Blaming the mass-murder and Danny-kidnapping she had just been the sole witness to for her forgetfulness, she dashed back up the stairs and absolutely did not slip on the pools of blood dotting the entirety of the bank.

The deputies, if they were done investigating their dead boss, would be along soon. Someone in the horror of a town was bound to have seen or heard something. The bank robbers were not subtle and Danny’s fair and legal killing of the sheriff could only hold attention for so long. The bank would be investigated, giving the four people in what sounded like a horse and freaking cart time to get away.

Carmilla felt the blast of hot yet fresh air when she slid through the door, steadfastly not thinking about what she was slipping on exactly. Thinking about it would only lead to a breakdown, physical or mental she couldn’t tell, but it would halt her getaway and she couldn’t have that. Not after Danny gave up her freedom for Carmilla’s.

A gun lay on the steps on the bank, Carmilla ignored it. She wasn’t a fighter by any means. A doctor, capable of poisoning a person who came to her with a cough or the flu, not much skill in the ways of the gun. The best she could do to defend herself were the knives still tucked into her boots. Stepping over the abandoned weapon, she watched as three men on horseback went charging through town, completely ignoring the bank.

Carmilla knew they were going after the robbers, or maybe even the murderer of their sheriff would draw their attention from the bodies. The money was gone with the horse and cart that flew out of town, there was nothing to be done for the bank and the people inside anymore.

She could steal a horse, race after them, die trying to save a woman who didn’t even grace her with her last name. There was no way they ended up together in that scenario. Carmilla could use her knives up close, throwing them was out of the question. She was functionally unarmed.

The answer to her indecision came at the jolting thought that the longer she was out in the open, the greater the possibility of Mother finding her and dragging her sorry ass back ‘home’.

Carmilla would flee back to the cabin in the middle of the woods, probably owned by one of the other Lawrence’s. It was the only place Carmilla knew for sure had weapons and supplies. At a jog, Carmilla took off toward the woodlands, hoping she remembered the way.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Danny let her head loll to the side taking in the receding view of the new town. Once the bodies were buried, they would remember that along with the people at the bank, they were now also out a sheriff. Danny smirked, then noticed a dust cloud rising from town. Only a small one, but still there, still noticeable. She sighed, the wound through her side wasn’t killing her anytime soon and any incompetent idiot from town didn’t deserve her life.

“Don’t suppose you have a back up plan?” Danny asked, getting the attention of Crazy and Tiny. “Auxiliary getaway horses that are now following you?”

The way they both lunged for bigger guns and the boxes of ammunition did not fill Danny with hope and security. Tiny pulled out a rifle that didn’t have a scope, rendering it basically useless for this situation. Danny didn’t need to let herself bleed out, these dumb fuckers were going to get her killed long before that happened. Crazy grabbed, insanely, a freaking shotgun. Yes, Danny thought, that will help in this particular situation.

“Get your head down, Lawrence,” Tiny spat. Danny wondered what her fantastic family had done to these people, it was bound to be something terrible. Forcing people off their land, goons killing someone they cared about, buying out local businesses and replacing them with money-laundering fronts. All great community services provided to you by Lawrence and Sons’!

“What kind of bounty doesn’t have a ‘here have half for trying even though you had to kill them’ option?” Crazy shouted, excited by the prospect of more violence, or of dying quickly when whoever was chasing them caught up and took exactly four shots to kill them all. “What the hell did you do?”

Danny didn’t answer, if Papa didn’t see fit to include her actual crimes on the bounty, then Danny certainly wasn’t going to share the information with any old crazy people she happened to be kidnapped by at any given moment. “Give me the rifle.”

Tiny took her eyes off the approaching horsemen to glare at Danny. “Wow, you really are insane,” she growled, raising the rifle to her shoulder. “I’m not giving you my pocket knife, why the fuck would I let you have a gun?”

“They really aren’t coming for you,” explained Danny, sitting up for the first time since she was bundled into the cart. “At least, that’s not why they’re putting their lives on the line,” she continued, attempting to make her case for being given a means to defend herself.

“We just killed more than ten people!” Curly screamed from the front. Danny struggled to believe that these three were the fearsome bank robbers that slaughtered any witnesses without a second thought. Every other piece of gossip she heard while tending bar across the country was about the gang coming for your kids in the middle of the night. The rest of it was about Danny, her brothers, or her Papa. Gossip got boring fast, and they were apparently never right about everything. “The law tends to follow you after doing something like that!”

Danny rolled her eyes, Tiny noticed and recognition set into her form. “You killed the sheriff?”

“Well the good doctor certainly didn’t,” Danny drawled even as Tiny took a potshot at the gaining lawmen. Danny watched rocks kick up in the distance as the bullet hit home and her shoulders slumped. Tiny missed by an impressive margin, like she was doing it on purpose. “You guys don’t do long range stuff very often, do you?”

Tiny flushed more than the heat and stress of the afternoon would explain away. “Our line of work doesn’t lend itself to subtlety, Lawrence.”

There was the disdain again, Danny noted, wishing the murder of her brother could completely disconnect her from whatever the family had done to Tiny to make her so fucking angry.

Tiny’s eyes flicked between the men and her captive, chewing on her bottom lip as she considered the situation. Danny filed the quirk away for future use, her side barely hurt anymore and she could survive the day. Escaping could become an option in the future and she needed every advantage.

Danny stared down the woman, not even breaking her steadfast gaze when Tiny pulled out her revolver and levelled it inches from Danny’s head. The rifle was wordlessly passed to her, and Crazy took the hint, flattening against the bottom of the cart. Danny caught Curly ducking down as well, even as Tiny didn’t remove her aim from Danny when they went over a particularly large rock on the road.

Inspecting her new gun, far better than the ones she won in duels after her flight from home, Danny pocketed a couple of extra bullets, without any real sights it would be harder to calibrate her aim before the men were upon them. They were closer now, taking warning shots at the fleeing cart. Danny figured they would actually let the bank robbers/mass murderers go if it meant being the ones to bring Danny Lawrence to heel for her family. Three men, three horses, Danny grabbed another handful of bullets and got herself comfortable for the work to be done.

Settling her gun on the back of the cart, she lined up the end of the barrel perfectly with what she assumed to be a deputy, the one riding in the middle of the trio. With any luck, her shot would go wide and hit one of the other two, however unlikely. Danny fired once, over-compensating for the relatively minor recoil as it gently slammed into her shoulder. The hole in her side reminded her that it existed, and she heard Crazy gasp behind her.

“She’s freaking bleeding!”

The cool ring of Tiny’s gun pressed against her temple. “Were you going to share this information?”

Danny ignored her, smirking as she fired. Tiny could have pulled the trigger for all Danny cared. The shot was much closer than her first attempt, especially now she knew the weapon’s recoil and could hold it properly without fear of further pain. Tiny growled behind her, removing the revolver from Danny’s head and rustling around the cart. Danny still didn’t care what she did, there was a task at hand and these men were as good as dead.

Another shot. One down, cartwheeling off the back of his horse as his hands went slack with shock and sudden death.

“Perry! Find somewhere to hide, we need her alive!” Tiny yelled at Curly, Perry. Danny filed it away with Tiny’s lip thing, never know.

Perry gasped louder than a mass-murderer should have when Danny blasted the second man off his horse. His gun must have fired on the way down, the horse screamed as it went down along with its rider. Crazy gave an excited whoop, and Danny knew who the driving force behind the bank robbing strategy came from. Careful around that one, she told herself, vowing to kill the crazy one first.

“Did you have to kill the horse?” Perry screamed back at her, causing Danny to roll her eyes at the odd innocence around the woman. Crazy made a noise of protest while Tiny rummaged through their things, no doubt searching for medical supplies.

Danny couldn’t resist, “technically, he killed his own horse!”

Tiny’s small boot kicked her in the thigh, causing a hiss of pain to escape. Danny wondered how long it would take for them to find the comparatively minor wound on her arm. That would be a fun time for all. “How many times did we shoot you?” Tiny asked, though she didn’t seem to expect an actual response.

Danny pushed the pain and Tiny’s words out of her mind. The final man didn’t seem perturbed by the death of his two friends, which struck Danny as needlessly callous and kind of stupid. Why pursue a group of people who could clearly kill from a distance and up close? A sense of duty, or perhaps the insatiable lust for money.

Papa would pay for me in gold, Danny thought as she lined up her final shot. Whatever the man’s reasoning, it didn’t matter anymore when she squeezed the trigger. He was now close enough for her to see the spray of blood come out the back of his head. Perry remained silent this time, Crazy didn’t cheer, and Tiny snatched the rifle from Danny’s hands now they were officially clear of the town.

“We stop for the night, fix her up, then head for Lawrence and Sons’ headquarters in the morning,” Tiny detailed their plan with a scary calm that did nothing but unsettle Danny.

She hoped Carmilla wasn’t caught up in the chase, and that she escaped her Mother’s grasp yet again.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It took far longer than when she had Danny to guide her, but Carmilla found the cabin easily enough. It seemed empty from the outside. Carmilla pushed open the door with a knife held in her free hand. There would be no more drops in her vigilance. Danny Lawrence wouldn’t be there to save her ass anymore and Mother would kill her before caring for her safety.

Carmilla needed the bigger guns, the ones Danny and every man who had ever tried to impress the doctor agreed were easier to kill with for the inexperienced. The smaller guns had more parts, more things to go wrong. The rifles and shotguns were many, they literally came out of the walls once they settled into the cabin, adding to the sizable collection Danny carried with her while drifting. Carmilla checked two of the simplest guns and packed a variety of bullet types into a travelling pack stashed into the closet.

She searched the cabin high and low, hunting down a few smaller guns, revolvers, and added them to the pile of weaponry on the bed she shared with her wayward drifter. More bullets, some clothes, Danny’s heavy coat.

Carmilla got to the coat before she noticed she was crying. The entire cabin was covered floor to ceiling with Danny’s scent. The woman had clearly lived here in between her travels, personal touches littered the small building and it overwhelmed Carmilla. There wasn’t anywhere to run, not really.

Danny was gone. Mother would have her killed. Her so-called family at Silas would probably kill her as well for the betrayal alone.

Probably.

Carmilla sighed into Danny’s coat, before wrapping it around herself and curling up at the end of the bed. Back to Silas University. That would end with her death, quick and exacting from the harsh hands of the Family. Betrayal tended to invite that kind of thing on a person’s head.

The matter of logistics was ridiculous. It was an age to get back to the university, it took most of a day by car. Walking would take weeks if not months, though she did happen upon an idea while inhaling the scent of Danny from the coat. Hitchhiking wasn’t exactly a silly notion, though Danny did it knowing she was willing to kill her way out of just about any hassle thrown her way.

Carmilla didn’t know she had that kind of resolve, to end lives quite so easily, to shrug off murder without a second thought. Her reflexes weren’t perfect and she couldn’t shoot well enough to ensure living through getting into the wrong car or onto the wrong cart. If anyone tried to rob her, then there was basically nothing she could do about it.

The coat was far too big on her, but she knew she was going to keep it for as long as getting her Danny back would take. Even if it meant going up against Lawrence and Sons’ eventually, if she didn’t catch up to the fucking bank robbers before they could exchange the wayward daughter for their thirty pieces of silver.

Taking a deep breath, trying to steady herself while wishing Danny hadn’t hidden the alcohol in the cabin, Carmilla stood on shaky legs. The guns fit all too well into Danny’s pack, which made sense to Carmilla. The woman was more armed than the army man she was impersonating, Carmilla figured with a wistful smile. Blankets, food, and Danny’s extensive camping gear went into the pack. Carmilla swung it onto her shoulders and frowned at the weight. Danny carrying her for hours upon hours the day they met suddenly made a lot more sense.

She couldn’t afford to wait around any longer, however much her body begged to rest. They already had a massive head start on her chase, she wouldn’t let Danny get any further away. She made sure to grab her medical bag, there was no way Danny wasn’t going to need help when Carmilla found her eventually.

Carefully locking the door as she left, Carmilla closed her eyes and breathed in the last remnant of her time with the nationally feared Danny Lawrence.

The gentle touch, the fierce protectiveness, and the determined glint to her shining blue eyes, Carmilla choked the tears back.

Wood snapping in the middle of the woods didn’t raise an alarm, the crunching of underbrush and the rhythmic stamping of a heavy human gait however was a screaming alarm for anyone who wasn’t exactly supposed to be there.

Carmilla’s heart started hammering in her chest, praying that whoever was on their way to the only structure for miles wasn’t yet within sight. Otherwise this would be a very short rescue attempt. She scrambled to the opposite side of the cabin, pressing her side into the wooden walls and crouching low. The instinct to draw a gun wasn’t there yet, but by the time the man arrived Carmilla’s mind caught up with the situation.

The man was muttering to himself, angry if not bitter. He was a large man, his boots heavy on the modest stairs. The handle on the door rattled violently, prompting a truly terrifying voice to swear into the otherwise silence of the woods. Carmilla’s fingers gripped around revolver clumsily, the wood feeling foreign in her hands.

“I am going to murder that girl!” Carmilla almost fired the gun in shock at the sudden outburst. It was swiftly followed by banging that seemed to rattle the entire cabin. It continued six times before an unholy crack sounded and Carmilla guessed that he had broken down the door or kicked it clear off its hinges.

If Carmilla had to guess, she’d say this was brother or big daddy Lawrence. Come to fetch Danny. Or at least it was a flunky hired to hunt the poor girl down. Missed her by that much, Carmilla informed them silently. Though Danny did seem anxious to leave as soon as possible, so it was absolutely someone who would recognise her if they crossed paths.

Carmilla wanted to run, her bravery leaving her as she considered exactly how tall and imposing Danny stood.

What would her big brother or father look like? Man mountains, probably.

Carmilla did not have a gun large enough to deal with a man mountain. She wasn’t entirely sure there was a gun built that could take down Danny, let alone the creature that fathered the woman. She remained perfectly still despite the screaming in her thigh muscles to please stand up straight.

“Brought her goddamn whores back here too,” the man groused to himself. Carmilla balked at the descriptor and wondered if she should be jealous or offended. “Could at least air the place out.”

He searched around in the house, occasionally calling out for Danny to show herself. Carmilla needed to move, he would be out to check on the rest of the property. It would be all too easy for Danny to escape his grasp by merely hiding behind the building. Choices, choices. Attempt to kill him, or just run.

Danny would kill him, and wouldn’t hesitate. She would put her shoulders back and kill him.

Carmilla wasn’t Danny Lawrence, she wasn’t running from murders but rather the refusal to be complicit in them. Killing for no reason wasn’t her style and he wasn’t a direct threat to her yet. Carmilla could talk her way out of the situation, claim she was just stealing from an unlocked cabin in the woods.

Lawrence and Sons’ was notorious for a wide variety of reasons. The Boss had once accidentally forced one of their storefronts into paying protection, seven people were executed for the slight against their territory. Pretending to steal from them was out of the question unless suicidal.

Carmilla was not suicidal.

Running didn’t feel especially appealing either. Not knowing the land and only having a vague idea of which direction to start heading kept her still for much longer than was strictly sane.

A crash inside the cabin prompted her to action, the shattering glass forcing her stiff legs into motion. She threw the poisons out of her medical bag, affixed it to the pack, and set off towards the setting sun.

The man inside didn’t shout after her, nor were there any shots fired at her retreating form. Carmilla wondered how the man had made his way to the cabin, if there was a horse nearby she could steal, or a car waiting on the road at least a mile away. Anything would be better than walking the whole way back to school.

Lungs burning and hand cramping from her grasp on the revolver, Carmilla forced herself to keep running until she cleared the woods. The man could find all the evidence he wanted of Carmilla’s presence in the cabin, she didn’t care if the full force of Lawrence and Sons’ came hunting for her head. If Danny could do it, then so could Carmilla.

Swearing profusely when she didn’t see the man’s transport in the immediate vicinity of the roadside, Carmilla did some rough math in her head. Calculating distance and being brutally honest with herself regarding her own physical capabilities, she came up with nearly a fortnight to reach Silas University and her hopes of saving Danny dwindled as she began her journey.

A speeding car went flying passed her, and Carmilla sighed.

How fitting. Now she was the hitchhiker.

Fantastic.


	2. Pretty People

They were forced to stop. The horses needed a rest and Crazy needed stability to properly treat Danny’s apparently severe wound. Danny disagreed at this diagnosis and resigned herself to another medical professional to get pissed at her attitude toward her own injuries.

Danny couldn’t help but gape at how downright attractive the three robbers were without their cheap cloth masks covering the lower halves of their faces. Three totally different kinds of gorgeous, but still eye-catching in their own ways.

Thankfully, none of the three noticed her staring, leering, and she was allowed to lie back in the cart. She consoled herself that she had lost enough blood to be woozy, the pain fading in and out with her consciousness. Danny kept her thoughts on Carmilla, trying to keep a clear image of her face in her head. To remember what the other woman felt like on top of her, beneath her, with her.

It wouldn’t be worthwhile if something happened to the doctor, essentially sacrificing her own life for a woman she barely knew. Though Danny Lawrence’s life was largely futile in the first place, ask anyone. Starting with the two people who still insisted on calling her ‘Daniel’ rather than the name she chose for herself. Danny snorted, remembering the framed baby photo of herself with her name and its meaning underneath it, ‘judged by God’ it read, and no one would dare say her father wasn’t a god among the common man.

These idiots would probably be killed trying to get the bounty off him, no loose ends. Danny could only hope that he hadn’t got wind of Carmilla and any involvement she had with his child. That would only lead to her head on the chopping block alongside Danny’s. How poetic, Danny thought, idly playing with the piles of money she had spent the afternoon slowly dousing with her blood.

Crazy didn’t have a medical bag like Carmilla’s. The stitches looked rough and Danny could smell the alcohol from where she lay. She supposed that was a somewhat good sign. The maniacal grin on her surgeon’s face wasn’t the least bit comforting.

“You know, I’ve always wanted to dig out a bullet,” Crazy started, fiddling with the tiny piece of metal that would be taken to Danny’s side. Danny almost felt bad for disappointing the bastard.

“Look lady, hate to burs-”

“I’m not a lady,” Crazy cut her off, pressing a finely shined shoe into Danny’s injured thigh, “or a sir.”

“Look asshole, hate to burst your little happy bubble there,” Danny continued with her thought, moving on from the interruption with practised ease, “but the bullet went the whole way through.”

Crazy’s entire face dropped along with their chin to their chest. Danny rolled her eyes, heavens forgive her for not successfully catching the bullet with her body. Maybe Carmilla was right and her body was allergic to bullets. “Not even a little shrapnel?”

If it wouldn’t get her killed immediately, Danny would wrestle the knife resting on Crazy’s hip from them and get to stabbing. Tiny glared at them both, watching with her finger curled around the trigger. Danny knew she was going to end up shot accidentally by these three idiots, and started making her peace with whichever deity she believed in this week.

“LaFontaine!” Danny’s head snapped to attention, following Crazy’s eyes to Tiny, who was absolutely adorable when she was pissed off. “Do your damn job and make sure she survives long enough to hand her over.”

LaFontaine ran a hand through their hair, tugging at the tips with a whine. Danny recoiled, that was not a noise one wanted one’s medical professional to be making. Her mind oscillated wildly through wanting to escape capture, and giving in to death faster than the robbers were expecting. Stop fighting, give in. It would be simple.

“But, Laura-!”

Danny smirked. She wasn’t going anywhere. They might be mass-murdering bank robbers, but they were far from professionals. If Danny were in their shoes, she wouldn’t let her captive know their names, especially if she were keeping them alive. “You know, I can probably do this by myself,” suggested Danny, pulling her shirt up to get a good look at the wound for the first time.

“So you can make a ‘mistake’ and bleed out?” Laura snapped, rising and pointing her comically large gun at both Danny and LaFontaine. Maybe they weren’t as trusting of each other as they should have been. Another strike against their pathetic professionalism.

“Alright, no need to shoot the bounty, no use to you dead, remember?” Danny poked at Laura, testing to see if she really was the leader or if someone else would stop her from being angered further. That was step one with dealing with the situation at hand. Figure out who is in charge. "Would hate for you to leave behind a witness for the first time for nothing."

Laura ground her teeth together and took a half step forwards. "It's not like she can identify any of us, and I've seen the posters, you're worth more than all three of us combined."

Danny rolled her eyes, lying back onto the piles of money rather than look at any of them. The sky wasn't actively trying to get her killed, it afforded a much nicer view. "Your bounties are way too low anyway, probably because I can be taking in at any time and you pretty much have to be caught in the act for anyone to claim the money."

From what she had read in second-hand newspapers collected from roadsides and bar rooms, this particular gang of bank robbers could be almost anyone. The only description of the three of them available anywhere was at best vague, and all it really said was that there was a high chance that the gang was only comprised of three individuals. Danny envied that kind of anonymity, something she could never have with the combination of her hair and her height. The entire country knew the description Papa Lawrence had put out far and wide.

Laura seemed to lose interest in rising to Danny's words, huffing out a breath and putting down her gun, if the sound of metal striking stone was anything to go by.

Danny didn't push further, Tiny might be the leader or perhaps everyone was an equal in this little society of three, she had an answer. She tensed her body as LaFontaine descended with a knife and a needle. Danny missed Carmilla's gentle, practiced hands. The pair tending to her wound felt clumsy, like a bartender on their first day accidentally dropping the expensive bottle of whisky. It did not bode well for her future health and well-being.

Letting her mind drift from the cold of the alcohol being poured over the hole in her side, Danny started to plan out step two:

Get one of them alone, sow discord or to take them out of the equation.

Danny found herself not caring which.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The light was going to die sooner rather than later, Carmilla couldn’t afford to whine silently to herself at the roadside for much longer. Walking was the option, however much she would prefer it anyway.

She pulled the shotgun from her pack and slung it over her shoulder, putting the best rifle over the other. If she was armed enough, then she could potentially have a chance at surviving a negative hitchhiking experience.

Carmilla knew the limitation of the human body. She wasn’t active in her daily life, there wasn’t a need until this moment. Her legs weren’t long and she wasn’t naturally charming to compensate for these failings. Danny would be dead by the time she even got to help.

She sighed, starting to walk at an even pace along the side of the road.

It was going to be a long day.

The night would prove longer.

Carmilla watched the sun drop below the horizon, taking stock of her muscles and bones as it grew dark. The moon was bright and her body was holding up much better than she initially thought. The doctor put her resilience down to the various stress hormones flying through her, keeping her eyes alert and blocking the pain she knew she should be feeling. It wasn’t until the moon was high in the sky that she truly started to feel it.

The pain started in her side and not her previously injured ankle like she was expecting. The lancing pain reminded her that she wasn't built to be this active. Wouldn't a break be nice? She shook her head to dismiss the question, keeping her breathing even and methodical. Focusing on that rather than how tired she was might buy her another mile before she was forced to stop.

Not that she had any particular plan for when she did stop. Curling up against a particularly large tree probably wasn't the best way to sleep in the great outdoors, yet it was the best her limited knowledge was spitting out. Carmilla doubted she could construct a campsite as well as Danny did the day they met, nor did she feel she deserved that kind of luxury.

Every throb in her side and the twinge of not-quite-pain in her injured ankle reminded Carmilla that her current state was entirely her own fault. Mother's few lessons she passed on to her only daughter boiled down to 'Mother Knows Best' and 'Responsibility In All Things, Young Lady'. Carmilla knew that Danny wouldn't have been anywhere near that bank without her, therefore anything that happened to the woman was Carmilla's responsibility.

The train of self-loathing ran through her mind until the cold of midnight washed over her tired body, the layers of sweat she was covered in working all too well. Stumbling, Carmilla could barely get herself into the cover of the tree line and underneath the layers of cloth she hastily shoved into the bottom of her pack. She restrained herself with her limited supply of water and gritted her teeth against the toughness of the dried meat.

Danny could be in the hands of her awful family, whispered her mind, sounding like Mother's voice more than her own. It continued, she could be dead because you can't protect yourself, because you just had to have your money. Carmilla covered her ears to block out the voice, trying to convince herself that it was just her exhaustion talking. Hearing voices wasn't something she needed a medical degree to figure was a bad sign. Despite her efforts, it got in a final shot before she passed out from a vicious combination of exhaustion and the receding stress:

Was it worth it, doc?

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Laura was glaring at her from across the campfire, rifle sat in her lap, revolver still sitting on her hip. Danny’s reputation must have grown in her time out of civilisation, because she didn’t remember warranting this kind of treatment after just the one little case of fratricide. Papa had done some publicity, Danny bitterly complained to herself, setting little Laura with an equally pissed off glare.

“Why didn’t you tell us about it?” Laura finally asked after a quarter of an hour’s worth of unmoving focus on one Danny Lawrence. “The fun hole you have somehow acquired in your side?”

Keeping her eyes on Laura and glaring hard, Danny had to take a moment to acknowledge the absurdity of her situation. “One of you geniuses fucking shot me! I don’t actually want to face my goddamn fucking father, so dying is very much a preferable option to that.”

Laura and Perry had the decency to look ashamed, though LaFontaine continued eating without a single care in the world. At least Danny now knew the most likely culprit for her latest wound.

“We were there to kill her, technically,” Perry began, “do we apologise for not achieving this goal?”

LaFontaine stopped eating to consider the question. Danny set down her food, appetite suddenly gone at the reminder that her and Carmilla could have just as easily been dead if she was anyone but herself.

“If I promise to not kill you all in your sleep, may I pretty please get some rest?”

Laura went right back to the glaring, raising the gun to point directly at Danny’s centre. “Sure, LaF?” Ginger eyebrows rose in acknowledgement. “Take what you need and go grab your stuff, shouldn’t be too far.”

LaFontaine demolished their remaining dinner and hurried to grab one of the bags Danny knew was filled to bursting with money. The crazy one then set about taking one of the horses.

“Do I want to know?” Danny threw into the silence left by LaFontaine. Laura shrugged while Perry looked like she was about to throw up. “Whatever, I don’t care.”

Danny let herself fall onto the ground with nothing but a single animal skin blanket to cover herself. She heard Laura snort at the somewhat self-destructive behaviour, though she ignored it. Danny had lived every single day since the day in the cabin with her brother with a fate worse than death hanging over her head. Self-destruction was kind of her thing and if Tiny couldn’t handle that, well that was her problem.

She got halfway asleep, almost to the comfort of unconsciousness, when a warm body lay down next to her. In the haze of her exhaustion, Danny thought it was Carmilla and started to move her arm to cover the much smaller doctor. Carmilla got cold at night.

“Do you love the doctor?” Danny’s arm considered continuing its crawl toward the body beside her, it wasn’t Carmilla to cuddle with, but strangling Laura would work just as well. “I mean, you basically sacrificed yourself to save her, you kind of have to love someone to do that, right?”

Danny didn't think that bank robbers who used kill 'em all as an identity safeguard could possibly sound so uncertain and small. Maybe strangling the woman here and now wasn't the best idea, Perry would probably have a gun ready to blow her brains out at a moment's notice. Danny considered all sides of the three against one kill or be killed ending to their situation, anything to not think about Laura's question. That would lead to examining her feelings with an attention to detail she wasn't totally sure they would survive.

Danny Lawrence had functionally given her life, the life she had spent the last year or so defending at the cost of at least twenty other people, to save a woman she barely knew. It was an insane idea now she had a moment to process. The Danny of even a month ago would take her brass knuckles to her jaw if she was presented with this information.

"Love," she began, cringing at the cracks her voice betrayed. Danny felt her cheeks grow warm and thanked the darkness for the illusion of privacy it gave. She cleared her throat and tried again, "love is taking things a bit too far. I'm tired."

Danny felt Laura's eyes scrutinising what little she could from Danny's passive face. "It has been a long day for everyone," was what the tiny woman eventually came up with and Danny couldn't stop the bark of laughter that flew out from her chest, not that she tried. "What? What's funny?"

"I meant tired in a slightly larger sense of the word," she explained once the laughing stopped. "Running get old fast, though I will say there's an exhilarating variety of experiences to be had when your back is against the wall and it's either your freedom or their life. I hate being trapped and that's what they want for me," Danny rambled as she lost herself in remembering the bounty hunters and local law enforcement that had tried to take her home since baby brother died.

"Exactly!" Danny noted out of the corner of her eye that Perry's attention was on the immediately after Laura's voice raised slightly above the hesitant whisper she opened with. Definitely not trying to murder her way out of this any time soon, waiting until only one of them was awake sounded much better to Danny. "That's why I'm confused. Everything I've read about the lost Lawrence paints you as a tornado, indiscriminately destructive and impossible to capture by us mere mortals."

Danny caught her confusion finally. "I probably could have killed you, though your friends would be another matter entirely. I couldn't allow the potential risk of death, and a fairly high one at that, to fall on someone other myself."

Laura's smirk was audible, "because you love her."

Danny could have tone without the teasing slant on her words. "No, or maybe I do. I don't know. But I do know that I've never had a life in my hands that wasn't my own or one that I wanted to end. Maybe that's how I'd react to anyone else being in danger, or maybe not."

Laura’s silent for so long that Danny presumes she’s gone to sleep and is halfway through a plan to kill her quietly enough so she has time to rush Perry when the woman speaks again. “You haven’t had anyone for the last year?”

"Would you be friends with someone who killed a part of their own family?" Danny countered the question, angry bubbling inside her at the perceived pity directed her way. "The good doctor had no idea who I am, or why I was running. Hell, she didn't even ask for my last name, let alone my poor dark and troubled past. It was nice to be a person for a little while rather than, what was it?"

Laura didn't seem to move while Danny searched her short term memory. Tiny was holding her breath in anticipation, Danny noted this down in the same column as the interested staring she'd done during their confrontation at the bank.

"Rather than the 'lost Lawrence'," she repeated Laura's own term back, causing the other woman to flinch at the disgust lacing her words. "The second I set foot in that town, there were eyes on me, curious and wondering why 'abnormally tall' and 'blue eyes, red hair' were suddenly very suspicious characteristics for a stranger to have. Doc must have been in isolation for the last year, or she's a damn fucking good liar, because she sure fooled me!"

Danny's chest rose and fell violently as the rage built, her criminally stitched up wound demanding she feel the pain throwing more fuel on the fire. Laura was holding her breath again. Waiting to see if the blaze turned flashover or petered out to nothing. A hand curled around the grip of a gun if her captive turned violent. Sudden and acute awareness of the physical disadvantage she had put herself in flew across her features causing Danny to reign in control of herself. There would be a time for violence later, when Tiny's nerves weren't on edge.

"So fuck no," bit Danny, considering long nights in cold beds without company and morning waking to her arms squeezing a pillow to death, "I haven't had anyone but her since the incident."

"You do lo-"

The hair on the back of Danny's head stood on end as the burning returned. "Did Mummy and Daddy Bank Robber not read you stories at night? You want a fucking fairy-tale? Look somewhere else, because I want a warm bed and someone who doesn't look at me and think Lawrence and Sons," she continued, crueler than she intended. A bitter laugh escaped, causing Laura to flinch at the exhausted noise. "I suppose it's just Lawrence and Son now."

Fear looked good in Tiny Laura, Danny thought with a mad grin on her lips. The woman who by all evidence had killed more people than Danny herself backed away and kept her grip on the hidden revolver tight. Danny was alone again as the supposed brave leader went to hide behind Perry's skirts. She took a vindicated ounce of joy from her initial assessment being correct. Tiny was in charge, and what ever problem she'd had with Danny or the Lawrence family as a whole wasn't enough to overcome her own curiosity.

Wants to know secrets. Knows she'll lose a fight in the dark. Lack of innate killer instinct. Acquire gun, grab caregiver, shoot Crazy, and Tiny will crumble. Freedom won back in four easy steps.

Danny went to sleep happy. Cold, but happy.

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
The guns hung heavy on Carmilla’s shoulders, and the walk was long.

She walked all day, until sunset. A few passing cars and several more horses slowed long enough to catch a glimpse of how heavily armed she was, then moved right along. Carmilla didn’t blame them. Danny would wait for her to get there, to save her for once. There was no way in hell her girl was letting those stupid robbers to hand her over to her family. She’d probably die first, Danny had an air of live free or die young about her that Carmilla struggled not to smile at even in her solitude.

Carmilla was re-checking the buckshot-loaded shotgun Danny owned for some insane reason or another when she heard a very different type of engine slowly rumbling toward her. Carmilla couldn’t identify what it was, and she spent her entire adult life at Silas University, a home to the cutting edge of technology and especially automotive excellence. If the students at Silas hadn’t heard it, then the engine didn’t exist.

Yet, it was coming, and coming fast.

Carmilla glanced over her shoulder and saw the dust being thrown up into the air. Significantly less than she would normally expect for anything with an engine, but the whole things was odd. Whatever it was wasn’t approaching quickly, so she had some time. Re-checking the shotgun, she decided she’d done quite enough walking for one trip.

Veering off her track on the roadside, Carmilla wandered into the centre of the road. The driver of the unknown would hopefully consider her a trick of the heat and continue on their merry way. She planted her feet as she’d seen Danny do, and raised the weapon. It wouldn’t need much aiming, even Carmilla knew roughly how a shotgun worked, especially this kind.

Carmilla waited until the vehicle, which seemed to have two wheels instead of four was close enough to see that it was a man driving. He slowed down, thankfully, Carmilla didn’t know how well she would go shooting a man off the back of his, motorised bicycle?

That would suit her perfectly.

The man came to a nearly total stop, regarding Carmilla warily. She wasn’t Danny, people tended to overlook her due to her relatively small size. The only thing intimidating the man was the sizable gun he had pointed directly at his body. The bike stopped and the man pushed out a kickstand to keep it upright as he approached the woman. Carmilla didn’t have time to consider how she looked.

She might have panicked a little.

The sound the gun made was thunderous, and Carmilla couldn’t hear anything aside from the strangled gurgle the man gave as his body fell backward onto the hot ground.

Only the birds above made any noise for the next few moments. Carmilla didn’t hear them, her own heart beating so hard she could hear her blood rushing through her ears. She dropped the shotgun and idly wondered if any of the man’s blood as sprayed back onto her. That would be inconvenient.

The motorcycle seemed complicated. Carmilla stepped over the body, taking short, sharp breaths that left her lungs begging for more.

Murder was new, and it wasn’t as in self defence as the one she’d watched Danny commit. The man could have been an actual saint for all she knew. Pushing it from her mind, Carmilla toyed with the handlebars of the bike, thankful that the recently deceased had left the thing running while he checked on the madwoman standing in the middle of the road with a shotgun. With some experimentation, she thought she could handle it long enough to get to civilisation again.

She didn’t look at the man as she jerkily made her way along the road, leaving a trail of blood behind her from the spinning tyres.

Silas was waiting for her, and with it, help.


	3. Chapter 3

Silas University.

Carmilla shivered at the imposing spires appeared on the horizon. She was miles out yet, and she could still see the damn things. The tallest of which was the Medical Wing, where she had spend many of her years away pouring over cadavers and skeletons. Rather than a warm sense of home, all Carmilla felt was the frozen foreboding of what she was here to beg from the head of the Family.

Carmilla was immediately struck by the notion that today would probably be her last. She rode towards the dawning sun, wishing her heart would allow her the callousness to give up. Leave Danny for dead, stop now and run the other way. Taking on three notorious criminals that had evaded all levels of law enforcement for months now wasn’t a rational thing to be doing, especially for some woman who didn’t even introduce herself properly until she was leaving Carmilla forever for all she knew at the time.

The motorcycle would need more fuel soon, as would her growling stomach. Any thoughts of giving up were vanquished as another pair of items on her ever-growing list of things to do were added. Carmilla sighed and shifted gears upward, urging the engine to work harder off less energy. If she delayed the inevitable any longer, then fear would win and there would forever be a hole in her heart.

The relatively small city that had sprung up around Silas University was far more welcoming than the artificially ancient campus itself. The direction Carmilla was approaching from was on the opposite side of town to the main operations of the mob, so she felt just comfortable enough to spend the night before she made for the central location she knew the Family operated from.

A room was cheap, she could afford more, but didn’t want to draw attention. They didn’t ask to search her sizable bag, another benefit that came from paying the bare minimum for accommodations. No questions asked. She even gave the President’s name as her own, and it was accepted without question.

Hiding her stolen motorcycle behind the decrepit building, careful to place it between a broken down cart and the wall so it wasn’t taken by someone else who didn’t care for walking, Carmilla dragged her weary body into the hotel. The stairs were pure torture and she begged whichever deity that existed for tomorrow to go well. That way, the gods would have to ensure the Boss allowed her to live for the night. Upper management’s curiosity in the favoured doctor pet in the Family would only hold out so long but Carmilla needed one night to sleep in peace.

Though she didn’t readily admit it even to herself, Carmilla needed the time for her mind and heart to consider that Danny Lawrence was most likely already given up for bounty. The woman was dead.

Carmilla needed to mourn.

 

 

\---

 

 

Morning came easily to Danny, stretching her stitches to just before the point of ripping and taking in the small washbasin LaFontaine had apparently filled in the night. Danny knew dried blood when she saw it and Crazy's arms were covered. She was immediately curious and more than a little suspicious.

Laura ended up curled dangerously close to the fire while Perry sat in the back of their cart, methodically counting the take from their robbery. Danny hoped there was enough money to justify the massacre these three had committed, and stopped her fast judgement in its tracks. There was the beginnings of an escape plan from the bank germinating in her mind from the moment she and the good doctor set foot in the building. It also involved killing or incapacitating the customers and staff without sparing them a second thought.

None of them noticed her wake and twist herself into something resembling a comfortable position. If they did, they certainly were doing an excellent job of hiding it. Laura was even snoring softly.

"Open those stitches, and we will send you back to Daddy light a few fingers," came the soft authority of Perry's voice. Danny froze in place. Perry wasn't looking at her, nor was she turned in such a way that Danny was in her periphery. Danny modified her plan, grab Tiny, still shoot Crazy, leverage Curly into surrendering. A biting scream from her thigh and her wounded side informed her politely that any kind of murdering was going to have to wait a few days.

Fighting with words then, great. Danny was fantastic at those.

"How do three of the most wanted people in the country plan on handing in the current high score holder in every sheriffs' office and police station from here to the border and back? You're all mighty conspicuous," she pointed out, suddenly finding herself as puzzled as her words sounded. How the hell were they going to get their money if they would just be arrested as well?

Danny stared pointedly at LaFontaine's bloody arms, and the pile of vibrantly red-stained clothing next to them. She doubted they fit in with society regularly, let alone after committing a string of audacious bank robberies over the last two and a half years.

"Did you have any idea what we looked like before yesterday?" Danny really, really wished they could do this fight with fists and guns. Perry's words cut into her relatively safe feeling, destroying any hope she had that they wouldn't actually turn her over to Papa and dear big brother. Danny did wonder if the two of them noticed Laura no longer snoring and breathing faster than any sleeping person should. "Then what about us is conspicuous, Princess?"

Laura tensed, Danny was sure she was the only one who noticed as LaFontaine raised their newly clean arms for inspection. Perry's head tilted to the side, giving an inch of ground to Danny's argument.

"I'm not exactly going to raise any suspicions, even if you tell Daddy or whomever he has in his sizable pockets," which was just about everyone he came into contact with, Danny's mind supplied, "what we do, who would believe you?"

Danny laughed, causing Laura to shoot up and raise her revolver level with Danny's head in the blink of an eye. LaFontaine turned their attention to the pile of bloody clothing. Perry finally turned to look at their captive Lawrence, raising a single eyebrow that seemed to question everything about Danny, up to and including her sanity. "He's either going to kill you or employ you, even odds going for anyone who wants to bet on which."

"Which office will he be at this time of year?" Perry asked, unperturbed by the threat of the eldest Lawrence. "The one in the capital or the 'educational charity' branch?"

Danny's eyes narrowed at the close detail this woman had of her family's dealings, including the brain draining campaign her older brother was waging against the government. She considered the question, and found she had no clue what month it was, only what season. Danny shrugged, causing Laura to blink her tired eyes twice and lose interest in covering Danny in case of attack immediately. Not a morning person, she filed away in the folder marked Tiny in her head.

"The university," Danny eventually decided, "if he's not there then The-," Danny snarled as her brother's name tried to escape, "my brother will have enough cash on hand to cover it."

Perry stared at her in a keen way Danny knew she had seen before, but couldn't place where.

"That will do," she decided, returning to counting the money and keeping herself perched high. Something ticked over in Danny's blood-loss addled brain, where she'd seen the posturing before.

Little brother did it once he came back from the army, scoped rifle slung over his shoulder.

A sniper, a brawler, and a savage walk into a bank...

 

 

\---

 

 

Sleep did not come quickly to Carmilla. The small hours of the morning came and went while she was still tossing and turning in her cheap, uncomfortable bed. Her mind raced with the possibilities that the dawn might bring, and the very real potential for this to be her last sunrise. Carmilla knew refusing an offer from the Boss of the Family wasn't something the sane did.

Having a taste of freedom settling heavily on her chest, she was over-joyed by the two weeks she got away from Mother and the Family. It was a nice time, with a monumentally bad girl. Carmilla had done some reading in the local papers, a first in her entire stay at Silas and in the small town that surrounded it. Even in her highly insular life she had heard the scandal of the Lawrence family, it was just those details that caught her short of a full picture.

Things like, tall, red hair, blue eyes, and likely armed and extremely dangerous.

Wounded in her flight from the family property, well-honed body after a lifetime of physical labour for her father, and impossibly charming.

All great information that would have kept Carmilla from trusting the woman.

Probably.

Carmilla drifted between sleep and consciousness as the night sky outside started to show signs of brightening with the coming of the sun.

The darkness of dreams and nightmares began to invade, and then vanished in an instant.

An almighty bang sent Carmilla shooting upwards in her bed just in time to see the door to her room fly open, burying the handle in the wall it was set in. The lock splintered from what had to have been a precise gunshot and two large, dark figures filled the doorway with their bulk.

For a moment, Carmilla thought she was done, the deep navy of the sky stopping her last dawn. They were going to confirm she was who the desk clerk had most likely described to the goons when they rolled into the building, that much was routine for the Family. After they knew she was the Boss' wayward doctor, a bullet or a noose or a garrote would be in her immediate future. Carmilla hadn't given any real thought to which she preferred. Danny no doubt knew which she would choose and it was equally certain that she'd want a bullet. That meant a fight.

Carmilla didn't have the urge for violence, she was still eagerly awaiting her very first murder to start registering on more than an intellectual level.

"Doctor Karnstein?" Carmilla felt they were too calm and collected for men about to kill another person, but the cold of Danny's eyes as she shot the sheriff flashed from her memories and she amended her summation of the men. They had killed before and saw it as a fact of their lives, of course they were going to be casual about it. "Boss wants to see you."

"What?" Carmilla choked out, her throat dry and scratching unpleasantly. The dust swirling around her for the ride from Mother's town to Silas must have been forcing its way into her throat and lungs without her noticing. Her airways constricted, preventing her from questioning the men further.

One of them moved more fully into the room, some kind of fabric in his hands that Carmilla could barely see in the minimal lighting. He pulled on the dark material until she could clearly make out the garroting in her near future. Boss could always want to see her body to confirm the doctor was really dead. Carmilla thought that wasn't an unreasonable assumption.

"Base of operations has moved," the man with the suspiciously not-a-piano-wire in his hands said, "can't have someone outside the Family's trusted knowing the new location."

"You understand, of course," added the other man, his voice like a snake in the grass where his partner's was like a feral guard dog. "Safety is of great importance for the Boss, what with the mess of things Big Daddy Lawrence is making with the local constabulary."

Carmilla was struck by the mad notion that she wasn't quite about to die just yet. This was more than confirmed as the silken fabric slid roughly over her eyes to be tied at the base of her skull. A blindfold rather than a noose was a welcome surprise.

Hands grabbed her by the shoulders, roughly pulling her out of the bed to stand blind somewhere near the door. She felt the cool fresh air flowing around her and worried for coming death when one of the hands left her shoulder. Heavy footsteps, a grunt, then the metallic sound of guns rustling against each other.

"Just the one bag?" Snake asked, his voice muffled and wondrous as if he was staring at Danny's collection of guns.

"My medical bag," she forced through the dry pain in her throat. "Under the bed."

"Ah wonderful," Snake stopped to retrieve it, "what are you worth without it, right?"

A truly astounding amount of zeros, Carmilla answered to herself, remembering the hitch in her breathing when she read the actual bounty on Danny Lawrence's head. How much her drifter decided Carmilla's life was worth, more zeros than a king's ransom and her own short, violent life.

Matska Belmonde was going to help her pay Danny back, if that meant Carmilla submitting to her cruel commands, then so be it.

The Belmonde Family and Syndicate didn't know it yet, but they were about to go to war with Lawrence and Sons'.

 

  
\---

 

  
Danny didn't ask what LaFontaine left the group to do, there were some questions she didn't need to know the answers and couldn't quite formulate the right way to ask anyway.

Upon further inspection of the cart the gang used to travel, Danny caught sight of the glittering glass of Perry's scoped rifle. Checking the stock as surreptitiously as she could, Danny's suspicions were confirmed. The gun was military issue. Perry was busy hiding the locked wooden crates from view on the underside of the cart while Laura had quiet words with the horses and LaFontaine finished burning their ruined clothes.

The sniper rifle gave the little gang a new, more dangerous edge. For starter's, the move to have Perry at the reigns for the getaway hid all of the dangers the woman actually posed. Danny was shot and bleeding out at the time, but she would swear under oath that the rifle wasn't in the cart nor in Perry's hands when Danny gave herself up for bounty.

"Touch it, and Laura might beat you to death with her bare hands," Perry said in that sure voice that set Danny's teeth on edge. "I can't stand having to adjust the sights and she hates it when I'm upset."

Danny could taste the threat she didn't make. Hey Genius, want to find out what sort of shit ends with you covered in blood the next morning? Danny considered grabbing one of the unloaded guns and testing her speed against Laura's, until she caught side of the eight-shooter in the woman's hand. She considered it a compliment that Laura seemed to think that Danny would need eight whole bullets to keep her down.

Though there was one box of ammunition marked with military emblems, and she didn't need to read the label to know that the man-stopping hollow-point rounds were ready for Perry to load and kill basically anything within a half-mile of herself without breaking a sweat.

Running was so far beyond not an option that it was right up there with become a ballroom dance champion.

"I'll try to keep that in mind," Danny said while picking up the box of bullets. "Local military or foreign?"

The other woman could have stolen from the locals while being trained elsewhere. Danny wanted all the information she could get on these three. Perry's head of vibrant curls appeared from beneath the cart to set Danny with a murderous look watered down with the clear cut curiosity shining through. "Those are local markings."

Danny smirked. "Any idiot can fake that though, the bullets themselves are a little harder to counterfeit," she challenged gently, resting the box back down so the other's didn't get it into their thick skulls that Danny was an imminent threat to their most likely leader. Danny was half-waiting for LaFontaine to present as the leader of the robbers, just to fuck with Danny's instincts.

"Do I look like I would be in the damn army?" Perry's voice slipped into stressed, giving Danny one of her few small victories. "You can buy anything if you find the right person."

Danny hopped into the cart fully, jarring her wounded leg and the healing itches started to be annoying as she awoke them. "Do you know how to get to the university?"

Perry climbed to her own position on the front bench as Laura led the horses over. LaFontaine threw dirt on their little fire and took their sweet time wandering over to join their partners.

"I assure you, we know where we're going," Perry answered, throwing a questioning glance over her shoulder at Danny's apparent willingness to drop the bullet topic. "How did you learn to shoot, military?"

Danny grinned, not answering even as she toyed with the truly astounding wooden crate filled to the brim with boxes of ammunition. Laura went to sit opposite her, keeping the revolver ready in her hand. Danny soundly ignored her, marvelling over the biggest collection of shotgun shells she'd ever seen. Papa traded in ammo when he was a little short on his expected quarterly profits, and the shotgun shells were always worth their weight in gold.

"No, you aren't that Lawrence, are you?" Danny froze, her body shutting down to prevent the shock that threatened to bloom all over her face. "Didn't think so."

LaFontaine seemed as confused as Danny felt, while Laura flinched once and visibly moved on from Perry's words.

"Did that poor girl know what you did? Or did you charm your way out of explaining yourself?"

Danny didn't respond, and settled in for the jolting pain of a horse-drawn ride to Silas University.

 

 

 ---

 

 

The trip to the new headquarters of the Belmonde Family felt like it took longer than necessary to Carmilla. They had to be leading her in circles so she wouldn't be able to trace their location. Carmilla wisely didn't mention how little she cared to know where they were based nor did she know the layout of the town well enough to backtrack, even if she wanted to.

Which she didn't, if this was going to work then she needed to get Mattie on her side. Hopefully before the sting of betrayal emerged in Mattie's memories, she wasn't a woman who heard the word 'no' very often. Then came Carmilla and a whole bunch of negative answers. She wouldn't kill, wouldn't let another die when she could stop it, and the final nail in her potential coffin, Carmilla refused to save the life of one of the Belmonde Family's most bloodthirsty savages.

The choice between almost certain death at the hands of the mob and going home to whatever fresh hell Mother had concocted didn't really seem like a choice at the time. Therefore, into the car she went and she was nearly killed by her Mother's agent anyway. Carmilla still wasn't clear on why Mother even decided she needed to die in the first place, and her guesses were few and increasingly outlandish.

The one upside to her situation, she would never find out why her own Mother wanted her dead, though she was curious about how much she had paid the driver to carry out the hit. If for no other reason than to compare her own worth against Danny’s.

The sun must have been high in the sky when they finally stopped moving. The two men, sitting like statues on either side of her, and the driver who had to have been in the front of the car shuffled around while grumbling to each other. They weren't happy about rising before the dawn to fetch a woman who hadn't put up the slightest of fights. The doors opened, blasting a wave of heat at Carmilla from all angles, and the men left her alone in the car, though she heard the locks click shut and had the overwhelming notion that she probably shouldn't attempt to take off her blindfold.

The door to her left opened with another burst of hot air. "Doctor?"

Carmilla flinched as Snake spoke, his hand coming to rest on her shoulder long enough to guide her out of the car without bashing her head into it. The heat of the mid-morning sun and the closeness of the air itself was short-lived thankfully, three stairs and she was inside a building again. Heavy doors slammed shut behind them, Snake gently prodding her in the right direction. Carmilla heard a muffled crack and the sadly familiar sound of a grown man screaming around a gag lodged in his mouth.

"Get that thing off her face, you imbeciles," a voice that had Carmilla's blood running cold ordered with the usual calm commanding edge. "Who exactly do you think my dearest doctor is going to tell?"

The brightness of the electrical lighting burned into Carmilla's eyes as the blindfold was ripped from her face, taking more than a few strands of hair with it. She hissed at the pain, but bit back the vicious words that boiled to the tip of her tongue as her old boss' figure cleared in her vision.

"It's so nice to see you, pet," cooed Mattie, waving a hand to the man at her side. He was bigger than Danny, and Carmilla cursed herself for making the contrast. The man's arms bulged out of his shirt, muscles straining with the hard grip he had on the brass knuckles adorning both hands. "Take a break, Goliath, I will take it from here."

The giant grunted, exiting the room by a door Carmilla couldn't see. What she could see didn't exactly fill her with confidence. The building was one of very few buildings Carmilla knew outside of the Silas campus, a doctor's office of the crooked kind. Mattie knew damn well that she did her practical requirements here, and the secrecy, the long drive, wasn't for security but for intimidation.

"Hey Mattie," Carmilla's shaky voice tried its best to sound not quite so terrified and failed horribly. She paired her words with a half-hearted wave. "Mother tried to kill me."

Carmilla wanted to smack herself across the face, though she saw the merit in starting with Mother and eventually segueing into saving some girl who was probably dead. Mattie laughed, causing her two men to take one giant step backward each. Carmilla let the sound flow over her body, identifying it as the genuinely amused laugh, rather than her more deadly ones.

"Oh dear one, I tried to talk her out of it, but she was simply insistent on making up for your," Mattie paused to pull her laughably small gun from her purse, casually putting it to the tied up man's head and pulling the trigger, "failures."

Carmilla didn't jump at the noise, the shooting gallery at the bank still deadening her ears to gunshots. The tough guys behind her both yelped and battered into the doors in their haste to escape from their own boss. Carmilla didn't blame them, her own stomach was roiling not from the blood and brains splattered against the cross-section of the human body poster hung on the wall, but from the bitterness Mattie's final word threw in her face.

"Oh," the word escaped underneath Carmilla's breath. Mattie tucked her gun back into her purse and waved her hands in a gesture that kicked the two men into action cleaning up all evidence of the newly deceased.

"'Oh'?" Mattie's grin seemed genuine, her concern real. Carmilla stopped the tensing of her muscles as Mattie crossed the room and wrapped a familiar arm around her shoulders. "You come back after running away from inheriting this fine establishment, and all you have for me is 'oh'?"

The men hauled the dead doctor out of his offices, scowling all the way. Carmilla knew it was due to the familiarity she had with Mattie that few others seemed to earn. Worse still, she had it after turning down the boss and booking it after graduation.

"I thought-," she tried to explain the mad theories she'd concocted to explain Mother's actions and fell short, "I don't know what I thought she was doing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The middle of this story and I have worked out our differences I can confidently post this while keeping in line with what's going to happen later.
> 
> Spoilers: It's not exactly peaceful.


	4. Silas

While she was being led to Mattie's temporary office in the apartment above the late doctor's offices, Carmilla felt invisible guns pointed at her from every angle. Before she arrived in Silas, Carmilla was totally certain that Mattie would have her killed for her public refusal of a permanent position in the Belmonde Family. It was know throughout her graduating class that the mob boss had taking the slight girl from far, far away underneath her wing as if she was her big sister and Carmilla needed all the guidance in the world. To turn that down was an embarrassment first and foremost, but Carmilla now understood that she had hurt Mattie on a much closer level, a familiar one.

"Now, I doubt this is a social call, darling," Mattie announced after a long, terrifying silence. Carmilla hovered in the doorway, uncomfortable with imminent death, how did Danny do this every day of her life? "Aside from Mother dearest, why are you back here, and don't be coy, I do hate it when you try to hide things. However adorable it was that one time is not worth the stress."

Carmilla was well aware of her general inability to lie competently. "Jilted lover?"

Mattie paused in checking over her revolver, raising a single eyebrow in disbelief. She put down the gun and folded her hands together on top of the newly vacated desk of the doctor. "Please, sit down. This is a new level of odd problems from you."

Carmilla was painfully aware of her movements and almost tripped over the chair on her unsteady legs. Witnessing an execution was catching up with her, she was a doctor and death personally offended her regardless of how it happened. She had spent years of her life trying to prevent it and the only person she could call her friend had blown a man's brains out for whatever she thought he did to deserve it.

"I met a girl, we fell madly in bed, and she's got a bounty on her head and I want to fucking kill her," Carmilla explained, pouring all of her anger at the bank robbers and Mother and a little bit Mattie too into her words to give it the right emotions for Mattie to read off her wildly uncontrolled face. "She took out the local sheriff in front of me in broad daylight and abandoned me for those mass murdering bank robbers. I barely got out of there alive."

Mattie scrutinised her face, searching for any hint of dishonesty. "A bounty is always a nice bonus for whomever collects it, I don't even tax it in the organisation, it keeps everyone happy," she started, still hunting around for Carmilla's lies, "you need me to kill your lover? Not your style."

Carmilla shrugged, "I'm not the best at the violence thing. I have a bunch of guns that I stole from her and a name that might not be her real one."

"Name?"

"Danny Lawrence, however I think she was lying to make herself seem tougher than she really is, not nearly tall enough for someone of Danny Lawrence's stature," she tried to keep Danny out of Mattie's keen killer instincts. Carmilla wanted Mattie to be looking for someone close but not quite Danny exactly. Danny could probably handle whatever the Belmonde Family could throw at her, if she was still alive by the time Mattie's people found her.

"She went off with the idiots giving crime in general a bad name?"

"Right before they killed everyone in the new Armitage branch Mother no doubt spent a lot of money securing for the town," Carmilla kept going, giving the story verifiable points that Mattie could have people check. "Just left me in the local bar and fucked off with them. For all I know, they could have been together all along. It feels worse knowing that I was probably just a way to waste time before her little friends arrived."

Mattie chuckled, sending Carmilla's nerves back on edge. If Mattie found it funny, then it wasn't a good thing.

"I have wondered for years what it would take to put homicide into your heart. Now I find out it's a romance gone wrong, you are adorable," Mattie crowed, leaning back in her chair. "How did you get through medical school without having a bad break up?"

Carmilla hadn't prepared for Mattie to be so amused by her fake heartbreak, "just lucky, I guess. Mother has always discouraged distractions."

"I seem to recall you working your way through the women of the medical department without much trouble," Mattie countered, more than done with her innocent little girl act. Carmilla had forgotten about how close of an interest Mattie had taken into her from the very start of her academic career. "One wandering vagabond and you're suddenly brought low?"

Carmilla resisted the urge to snarl at Mattie, it wouldn't help matters at all. "I don't like being lied to and used. That and she's too dangerous to be left alive."

That got Mattie's attention, she even leaned forward in her chair. "Too dangerous? No one is too dangerous."

"This woman is, you didn't see the look in her eyes when she blew away the sheriff. I thought I'd seen blood lust, she took it to a whole new level," Carmilla decided to keep going down the dangerous path, but grasped around in her mind for a way to make certain Mattie didn't go after the actual Danny, "she nearly went at me in the damn bar."

Mattie smirked, always a champion of Carmilla's robust romantic life, though it was a ceaselessly casual one. Sometimes, Carmilla felt like the crime boss would feel perfectly at home with the richest of fraternity brothers. She could picture Mattie and the social elite hunting the most dangerous game together. Danny would make an excellent runner, she'd probably cut off their dicks and jam them through the bullet holes she'd leave them with.

"I know it isn't the real Danny Lawrence, she gave herself away eventually," Carmilla started, her formidable brain finally doing its job, "I'm sure you know as well as I do that the birth certificate published for the twins read Theocritus and Daniel, beloved sons for big daddy Lawrence."

Mattie snorted, "I remember it certainly better than you, dear pet."

"She wouldn't ever be mistaken for a Daniel, if you catch my meaning?"

Mattie threw her head back and laughed long and loud. Carmilla was briefly concerned for her sanity. "You slept with an idiot?"

"A very attractive idiot," she corrected, not lying one bit. Idiots gave their lives for others. "And one that needs finding so I can take out the rage roiling inside my guts out on someone who isn't the guy I traded for my motorcycle."

"There's a piece in today's paper that suggests a gentleman youth was brutally gunned down and robbed of his vehicle very recently," Mattie said with a smirk. Carmilla shrugged. "Did you trade a magazine for it?"

"Some buckshot actually, not-Danny Lawrence is a well-armed idiot who left me with that stash of guns your boys took," she explained. "The guy must have thought I was a damsel in distress or something."

Mattie looked at her as if she was a whole new person. Carmilla swallowed around the rising lump in her throat. The delayed reaction to killing a man in cold blood slamming into her with the force of a train.

"Do you need to talk about that?"

Mattie had her moments where she could be a big sister to Carmilla, though they never lasted long. "No, it's fine."

"Go take in the town again, little one, come back for dinner and enjoy the freedom for a few hours," Mattie suggested with more authority than a suggestion deserved.

Carmilla went and thanked her lucky stars that Mattie didn't see right through her.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Something had Tiny Laura all agitated.

Danny noticed it first thing in the morning as the young woman went over her morning paper. She did not have the faintest idea who exactly went to buy the thing but she knew you could get your hands on one second-hand with relative ease in every last town in the entire country.

When she was done reading the first five pages of the damn thing, barely a quarter of the way through, Laura balled the pages up and threw it clear across their campsite. Danny watched it go with her eyes, carefully not showing her interest nor making any sudden movements. More information up for grabs, and about the most mysterious member of the close-knit gang.

Danny looked forward to catching a moment. Whatever rattled Laura, she needed to know about it.

They had made camp on the very outskirts of the small town housing Silas University. Danny had barely been to the university, even though Papa started his 'educational outreach' solely as a method for controlling Danny by giving her something productive to do with her time. He'd left it too late, and Danny already had opinions and certain very specific morals that didn't agree with Lawrence or the two Sons. The idle princess had a gift for sneaking around and she used it to amuse herself while Papa thought she was whiling away the hours in an ivory tower.

Perry had produced a detailed stack of professionally drawn maps of the country done at various scales. It took some shuffling, but the ex-Army sniper found the correct expensive sheet of paper eventually.

LaFontaine moved without being told, and Laura was sent to sulk over whatever she hadn't liked in the day's news. Danny was allowed to amuse herself as long as she was in full view of one of her captors. There was a makeshift table set up under LaFontaine's careful attention and Perry had the map of the town spread out before her as Danny wandered over while keeping one eye on the newspaper she just had to get her hands on before they left.

"Do you know which building you're looking for?" Danny broke through the verbal silence of the morning. Laura jumped up from her comfortable looking rock, eyes searching like a trapped animal. Neither Perry nor LaFontaine reacted to the sudden noise one way or the other.

Perry spared her a glance, then resumed her detailed inspection of the map. Danny caught sight of the date as she came to stand across from Perry, it was new, and that was vaguely unsettling for reasons Danny couldn't place. "I know where to drop you off late tomorrow evening, possibly the morning after."

Danny felt that was a little specific. "Are we doing something tomorrow morning?"  
  
"We are not, just preparing for our sunset plans," answered Perry, smirking to herself at some victory Danny couldn't quite figure out on her own. She remained silent, and hoped Perry would fill the silence with more information. "There's a very real chance that your brother won't pay up for the safe return of his dear sister, as you said."

Danny wanted to stitch her own mouth shut. The pain still going in her side told her that said stitching would have to be better than the hatchet job LaFontaine had done. At least she now had a new worst-ever stitching story to share with the good doctor, if they ever managed to meet again. It didn't seem very likely to Danny, especially since the knife Perry had produced from seemingly nowhere hovered thoughtfully over the large building helpfully labelled 'bank'.

"You have got to be kidding, right?" If it didn't strike her as such an absurd concept, Danny would probably see the merit in presenting Danny after the bank Lawrence and Son' kept a vast portion of their idle cash in was robbed by famously horrible people. The gain would sooth the sting of dear brother's loss, would stay Papa's backhand when his boy produced his wayward daughter, and would hopefully secure Danny a quick death.

Perry wasn't dumb. "We might be seen as heroes, Lawrence and Sons' along with the Belmonde Family and Syndicate, both brought low by three heavily armed individuals. The money won't hurt either," Perry added as an afterthought. That flared inside Danny's mind. Doing something like their brutal killings had to take a very specific set of motivations to justify.

Tiny Laura seemed scared. Crazy LaFontaine clearly saw the money as a means to whatever end Danny still wasn't interested in finding out. For Perry though, Danny felt a degree of empathy with the woman, doing something like waltzing into town while wanted nation-wide and robbing banks with ruthless efficiency just to prove you could carried a certain coldness.

Danny made a show of counting the assembled fugitives. "Are you deficient in your counting skills? Because I count four people."

Perry only kept on smirking.

"And you know I can get the best of just two of you in that kind of situation," Danny followed her train of thought, Perry nodding in agreement at her judgement, "and you can't leave someone here to hold a gun to my head the entire time, so that's out."

Perry moved the knife she was using as a pointer from hanging over the bank to just across a small town-square where a postal office sat. According to the neat annotations, the postal office was four-storeys tall. Perry tapped the knife against the building and Danny knew how three people were going to rob the bank while Perry could be certain that Danny wasn't getting away.

"'Help us rob a bank or I'll put another bullet through you, Lawrence'?" Danny did a poor imitation of Perry's voice, causing a genuine smile to appear on the woman's lips along with a bark of laughter from LaFontaine. "As if I wasn't wanted for every other crime imaginable, now I have to add bank robbery and mass murder to the list?"

"We have to drive up your value somehow," Perry answered, the mad glint of a crime well-planned flickering in her eyes.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
Carmilla spent the day in the largely unused old campus library, brushing up on her theory regarding bullet wounds and the basics of firing a gun that required more accuracy than her buckshot shotgun.

There was a shooting range that parents could take their kids to, and Carmilla noted some of Mattie's men out the front when she passed it on her way to grab lunch. They offered a variety of baked goods on sale from the local school children, not the university students, little kids, so Carmilla paid for an afternoon crash course in handling firearms.

Mattie would end up proud more likely than not. Little Doctor finally getting on board with the wild violence of the Belmonde Family and all it took was a lover who ran away.

"Boss trusts you'll join her for an after-dinner drink," the tough guy told her when she emerged, "your dorm room has been cleared out for you, Boss' orders."

Carmilla had managed to keep herself calm and ignore the constant feeling of being watched up until this point. She ducked around the side of the range and emptied her stomach.

Carmilla held the dorm room in fond regard, memories washing over her like a wave as she entered the standard two-person dorm room. The heady scent of her room mate's experiments went unnoticed by the men outside the door. It reeked like cleaning products to them. Carmilla only knew how much more sinister the asshole's work was and what was causing the overly clean smell to drown out everything else.

Carmilla was struck by the urge to empty her stomach yet again.

There was only one name on record as being expelled from the Medical Department at Silas University for reasons other than failure to pass courses. Carmilla was just lucky enough to be the mad one's room mate for the entire time she was attending.

They barely spoke, two very different personalities clashing harshly into a mutually agreed upon conscious effort into not being in the room at the same time ever. Except if one of them was asleep.

Carmilla was a largely nocturnal creature, the mad one was annoyingly bright in the mornings. It worked.

Now there was the scene of the obscene crimes hitting her with full force, compelling her to collapse in her old desk chair as far away from the other's side of the room.

"Fuck I hope they caught you, or some mob scene tore you limb from limb you sick bastard," she mused harshly to the other bed, wondering what life would be like if she went through with the initiation Mattie had asked upon Carmilla's graduation.

Killing one delinquent that she didn't even like should have been easy. Doctors did it on battlefields all the time as a mercy to those beyond help. A role as a military doctor was ideal for Carmilla, or a small practice on a ranch in some small town made large by the ever-expanding railway lines and booming trade opportunities. Ending one deranged life was nothing in the grand scale.

She knew she could do it now, were she to have her time over again. The gun handed to her had nothing on the destructive and gory power of the buckshot, just a low calibre revolver that probably couldn't have killed anyone anyway. In hindsight, Mattie wasn't getting her to kill anyone she needed killed, it was only a test of loyalty, of willingness. The real killing would have come later.

Mattie would be calling her before sunset.

Carmilla would propose burning the other bed in a symbolic gesture, offer to kill the fucker on sight if that's what Mattie wanted.

The brute outside the door wasn't making himself known, but his aftershave was strong enough to get through the scent of covered-up rotting flesh so she decided she liked him.

"Got a name, Lurch?"

The grunt swore under his breath.

"I expect to be watched," she called when he didn't answer, "I don't appreciate the pretence of not being watched when I actually am."

The grunt coughed a few times. "Sorry, Doctor Karnstein, Boss' orders and such."

"How do you know I haven't climbed out the window and escaped?" Carmilla forgot to bring something to read in her downtime before Mattie summoned her yet again.

He coughed again, this time holding back laughter, she was sure of it. "You are doing a fantastic job of throwing your voice, Doctor."

The enforcer wouldn't last long in Mattie's organisation. Too clever for her liking. Carmilla concluded her brief assessment of the enemy, deciding that Mattie would send him on to one of her very distant allies. Possibly Mother, possibly the corrupt factions inside the brave and true Hollis Administration, who could say really.

"Painted shut or being watched from out there?" Carmilla asked as she rose from the desk chair to investigate the matter further. The window was neither forced closed or under surveillance while Carmilla was a student here, she would have noticed when Mattie shot her for sneaking a visiting non-Family-and-Syndicate Belmonde cousin into the room while the mad one was out.

Carmilla smirked at the memory and wondered if that's what Danny did to piss of her father so badly. Slept with the wrong person. It had to be more than the official story, big daddy Lawrence didn't seem to care for any of his kids, even the so-called Sons' that he publicly claimed to adore.

"Not paid to know that," the young-sounding man answered after Carmilla drew her own conclusions.

"In a rare twist, Orderly," she declared him, since he wasn't providing a name in a million years, "it's both."

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
"Can I register my extreme doubts about this plan again?" Danny growled through the cloth tied far too tightly over the lower half of her face. The bank that probably held the majority of the combined wealth of the Belmonde Family and Lawrence and Sons' would be closing sooner rather than later. The sun was setting and there was no way the four of them could hesitate for much longer without either Belmonde agents or the local law in Papa's pocket noticing them. There had to be a rumour flying around town that the President's daughter was potentially spotted.

Said daughter glared with a new level of cold Danny was shocked to find was underneath the twelve layers of frost she had already been treated to over the last few days. "We go in, kill everyone, and get our money's worth out of you," she repeated their stupidly simple plan.

Danny wanted to scream that every single employee in the seemingly new bank was armed and ready to defend the vault with their lives. Knowing that this would fall on deaf ears, she instead steeled herself for the mass murder she was about to commit. Staring at the postal office across the rapidly darkening town square, she tried to pick out which window Perry had secured for herself. Then, with an unpleasant flip in her stomach, she wondered exactly how many people over there were now dead for the sake of the gang's anonymity.

Danny rolled her eyes at the idea that any of them were even remotely anonymous. Sure, maybe no one knew they were the feared bank robbers, but a crack shot military deserter, a mad scientist, and the President's missing daughter weren't exactly unknown to the world at large.

The newspaper was an illuminating read.

"I'll be going in first then?" Danny asked, sarcasm dripping from her voice. LaFontaine answered with the end of their shotgun pressed between her shoulder blades. "Alright then, ready?"

Laura used her fancy pocket watch to catch one of the last remaining rays of sunshine, reflecting it to the post office Perry was hopefully waiting in. Danny didn't see any confirmation, but Laura nodded once and that was apparently enough.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“What do you make of this, my pet?” Mattie asked, Carmilla flinching at the name like she could never seem to hold back the disgust. “Headline: ‘Madame President Mourns Daughter For Third Birthday Lost’, three full pages of the woman crying because baby girl ran away from home! It’s an outrage and the writers should be shot, there’s real news in the world, not this drivel!”

Carmilla honestly didn’t know who the fucking President’s daughter was, she’d sooner shoot the woman than greet her if it got Danny back, alive and well preferably. “What do you care about the day-to-day business of journalism?”

Mattie glanced at Carmilla over her wine, that considering stare that made Carmilla’s skin crawl while taking years off her life expectancy. Carmilla did her best to match the challenge, sipping her own wine. She hoped it wasn’t poisoned, that was rather famously how Mattie had taken over from the previous matriarch of the Belmonde Family after all. A real potential threat to Carmilla’s life.

Then again, breathing the same air as Mattie after turning her down should be considered an extreme sport, so some poison would only cut their little game short.

Mattie slowly, deliberately, place the delicate glass back onto the table. Carmilla froze with terror.

“I care,” Mattie said, as if speaking to a small idiot child, “because some brat’s birthday doesn’t quite stack up to the importance of my more,” she paused to smirk conspiratorially with Carmilla, who did not share her sly glee, “charitable efforts in this city. I must have words with these people, or perhaps you could?”

Carmilla choked on her own saliva, causing Mattie to throw her head back a give off one of her screeching laughs that exactly no one in the entire Belmonde Family could stand to hear. “I-”

“Oh I’m kidding, little one, you’ve always been useless at everything but your medicines and being pretty,” Mattie lashed out at Carmilla, her words cutting to the bone despite her pleasant, if not overly polite tone. “Now, to bed with you, we have a bounty to catch and we can’t do that if we’re sleepy!”

Carmilla did not run. She didn’t. Taking the stairs three at a time did not count. At all.

Carmilla remembered her old bed at Silas like it was yesterday instead of weeks ago. It was richly decorated and the sheets were the softest thing she'd slept on since she left, though not the most comforting.

Mattie was being weirdly kind about the whole situation. Though given that Carmilla was expecting a summary execution, anything less was bound to make one of her closest friends seem saintly.

Sleep came easily, exhaustion working better than anything else to send her off into a dreamless slumber.

A different enforcer was watching her sleep when she woke up. The beady pair of eyes set upon her movements as if she were an imminent threat to his safety. The small, unarmed woman was a danger to him.

Carmilla would never completely understand these criminal types.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever finish writing something then completely forget to upload it?
> 
> No, me neither.

Danny couldn’t breath through the fabric covering the lower half of her face. How did little Hollis and her two companions do this with any regularity? Any measure of physical activity and the restricting nature of the pseudo-mask would start to completely suffocate her. She wasn’t going to voice her complaints, that would be showing weakness and she had already done more than enough of that as of late. Begging scraps of paper for a note she would never get to deliver to a woman she could see herself falling in love with somewhere in a non-existent future. It was pathetic.

Danny Lawrence didn’t need air to live, she thought, checking her guns for the third time in as many minutes.

Danny caught another glint of light from across the main square, reminding her that she would be losing her head the moment she showed any sign of hesitation or betrayal. Perry would kill her and all of her options would be gone in an instant.

Laura was growling in the back of her throat so it sounded more like a deep rumble rather than a vicious dog ready to rip anyone in its path to shreds. LaFontaine was scanning the square for the non-existent foot traffic one would generally expect in a bustling town. However it was late in the afternoon and everyone was either still in classes or already at the establishment they would be drinking the day away at, or the library. Some brought booze into the library, Silas student were industrious like that.

"I presume I'll just be standing around silently while you two get on with the shouting?" Danny asked, because her captors were well-practised with an easy routine in place. Telling the guest robber anything hadn't apparently crossed any of their minds.

"Then we shoot them, not hard," Laura answered with a cutting glare for interrupting whatever the hell process she'd developed for preparing to rob a bank via mass murder.

"Shouting, money, massacre," LaFontaine added, cheerful. Danny was going to shoot them as soon as she knew Perry couldn't see them. "Even one of you Lawrence idiots can handle that, correct?"

Shooting in the face. After a bullet to the spine to prevent escape.

Laura went in first, guns blazing. LaFontaine followed doing the standard shouting Danny had seen in a thousand plays Papa took her and her brother to when they were younger. Danny rolled her eyes at the cliché of it all and followed them in.

What she saw was a bunch of tough guys staring silently at the two dead men Laura laid out with the opening shots of the day. LaFontaine raised a hand to stay Danny's gun mid-shout.

The people in the bank complied with everything LaFontaine said. Danny caught sight of more than one person go for their weapons, only to by knocked out and disarmed by Laura with a weighty right hook. Danny heard something break as Laura took out her fifth guy. Whether it was a facial bone or one of Laura's fingers, she couldn't be sure.

"You're little Karnstein's room mate, aren't you?" LaFontaine's attention whipped to the woman who spoke, her wide shoulders and red raw hands giving away a rather physical lifestyle. She got the stock of a shotgun crashing against her jaw for the trouble. Danny was taking that as a yes.

"Not another word," LaFontaine hissed.

"Karnstein?" Danny gave in to a sudden burning curiosity deep in her gut. "Ex?"

"Lilita Morgan's brat, has the family name the old bitch trades on outside of Silas attached to her so no one fucks with the good doctor," LaFontaine replied, probably because everyone who could hear them was going to be very dead soon. "Word before I was expelled said little Carmilla got herself on the wrong side of the Belmonde's and Mother Dearest was going to serve her head on a platter to keep the peace."

It was nice to be on the same level with Doc for the first time. Mob Doc, apparently. Danny wondered if Carmilla's mother had ever met big daddy Lawrence. They'd get on like a house on fire.

Danny put aside that little revelation and focused on the situation at hand as LaFontaine lost interest and started doing what Danny presumed to be their set job during robberies.

Danny suddenly noticed an important detail of the very well-guarded bank. It didn't have front facing windows. There was almost no chance Perry could see her from her position across the square, there would be no silently fatal bullet blasting through her head.

LaFontaine was methodically taking apart the guns they'd confiscated from the collected bank full of criminals and/or university students. For what purpose, Danny didn't want to know.

Laura kept herself moving from person to person, room to room. Her eyes flicked from one captive to another, never staying on any one target for more than a moment each.

Danny, in her uncomfortable mask and her again masquerading as a man clothing, was left to her own devices, the two enforcers trusting their leader to cover them even when Perry wasn't able to see either of them.

Her finger twitched to cover the trigger of her rifle, eyes focusing on the back of LaFontaine's head. If she played it right, and there was an underground exit out of the bank, Danny could wait until the usual massacre got started and finish it with Crazy and Tiny added to the pile of bodies. No one knew what any of them looked like, there would be no witnesses. Who would possibly know that two more dead people than could be accounted for turned up?

Lawrence and Sons' owned the police, the Belmonde Family and Syndicate owned everything that Lilita Morgan didn't have her fingers in and an encroaching interest in the things that she did. No one would look twice at a pair of dead strangers.

Danny backed up to just next to the closed but mostly glass door, perpetually hyper-aware of Perry's watchful eyes and scarily accurate gun.

These people would put up more of a fight than any other bank they'd ever robbed. Danny wasn't sure they had planned it out well enough to subdue these criminals and youths once it became clear who exactly was coming for their money. Most thugs in a mob didn't go down quietly when they had a gun in their hands, backing them into a corner unarmed would be as dangerous as flirting with the hangman's noose.

The ear-splitting bang of a revolver going off caused everyone in the main room of the bank to jump, besides Danny. Danny raised her rifle not to the people under her intimidating glare but at the source of the noise. If LaFontaine called her on it, she would say she was concerned for Laura's well-being, not planning to blow her brains out.

LaFontaine's shotgun was back in their hands faster than Danny could think of an excuse. Both shells were unloaded in back to back shots to the two closest heads near them. Danny flinched for the first time as their brains were splattered against the walls, the floors, and the people around them. Danny missed the message that any further shots after the two initial killings meant start shooting wholesale, though she saw the merit in the system.

As expected, the people surged to their feet after a moment worth of hesitation. Danny took three of them out with three bullets and drew her spare guns when the rifle ran out of ammo, dispensing another four in one breath. She didn't know if the lives she was taking deserved it and for a moment she didn't really care all that much.

There was work to be done.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

The morning came with a female thug knocking on her door. Carmilla wasn't aware Mattie had women on her payroll for this kind of duty.

"Breakfast with the Boss, be ready in ten," the woman barked through the door when Carmilla literally fell out of bed. The groaned reply didn't seem to move the woman as she beat against the door with more force than before. "Ten, Doctor!"

Carmilla decided not to attempt a stabbing so early in the morning. She might win and then there would be another life lost to her new-found ability to kill. Losing six patients during her residency was bad enough, now she was actively considering killing people. The supposed weight of taking another life was lost on her, she guessed, if the guilt was going to hit her, then it would have already.

Getting ready to face the day was a speedy affair which included carefully tucking her knives into her boots and wondering where exactly Mattie sent the rest of her stuff. Not that she'd ever be getting it back.

Carmilla opened the door to see a woman with her lower face covered with cloth and a hat drawn low over her eyes. One of Mattie's slightly more intelligent employees, who chose service on behalf of their family instead of protection money and other owed debts. The thug would have at least five years of service before her, with half of her income going to pay her family's debts off.

The woman glared at her with barely concealed annoyance. This probably felt like child's work to her, escorting a totally harmless doctor from one place to another. Not even local law enforcement would have a problem with it.

"Just breakfast?" Carmilla pushed with no real expectation of being answered. The woman sighed.

"There's probably brandy too?"

Carmilla went quietly, being keenly aware of the not so subtle eyes watching her as she went.

Mattie's office was just as elegant as it had been the night before.

"Ah, how kind of you to join us," Mattie greeted while rising from her expensive looking chair. There were three men Carmilla didn't recognise standing against the back wall and they did not look like anyone Mattie would willingly employ. "We'll discuss the ambassador at a later date gentlemen."

With that, everyone but Mattie and Carmilla was ushered out of the room with respectful tips of their finely crafted hats.

"Ambassador?" Carmilla started, taking the offered chair directly opposite Mattie as a servant appeared from nowhere to have some kind of silent conversation with his boss. "To where?"

Mattie clicked her tongue three times, "where is not for you to worry about. What I need you to do is give me some leverage over him."

Here it was, payment for not killing Carmilla when she deserved it from the perspective of a mob boss. Carmilla's stomach turned unpleasantly at what exactly 'leverage' over some ambassador man could possibly mean. If Mattie asked, Mattie was getting stabbed.

"Leverage?"

Mattie paused while her usual exotic breakfast of assorted colourful fruits were placed in front of them. "The ambassador has a daughter he cherishes after the sad death of his wife. While he's closed off to anyone new outside of his official duties, those official duties have brought both him and the girl to Silas."

Mattie stared at her until Carmilla got the message that breakfast was meant to be eaten, not stared at with a vague creeping sense of fear. Carmilla grabbed the first piece of fruit she could lay her hands on and tried to look less nervous.

"The ambassador has refused my personal requests for a meeting, along with all of those nice gentlemen. He is a stone wall with exactly one gate and that's where you come in, my dearest doctor," she explained.

Carmilla swallowed her mouthful so she didn't choke on her nerves. "The girl?"

Mattie grinned, wide and predatory. "Of course, the girl! Why would I send you for the ambassador?"

"And you want me to?" Carmilla needed more details before she decided to stick her own neck out, ripe for the slashing. When she did a favour for Mattie, she might have her surveillance reduced enough to slip away if she could head off the bank robbers from getting to either of the other surviving Lawrence's.

"Get to know the girl, chat about those old, dusty tomes you always have your studious little nose buried in, maybe take her out for a drink," Mattie answered as if she was talking to an idiot, "be your charming self and then whisper what I tell you to in her ear to pass on to daddy."

Carmilla gulped down the offered glass of milk to calm her nerves, wishing it had a dash of literally anything in Mattie’s impressive alcohol cabinet added.

“I liked your initiative yesterday, so you can spend the morning at the range and then you may return for lunch for a more thorough briefing on what I need her to do for me,” Mattie concluded.

Carmilla took an apple with her and prepared for a long day of shooting and seducing ahead.

Great to be back at school, really.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

The nondescript cart was waiting for them when they escaped the bank, bagfuls of money and a few gold bars in hand. Laura also had a pack filled with stolen ammunition and various gun parts slung over her sturdy shoulders. After the display of raw physical violence in the bank, Danny was back to not being sure if Laura or Perry was the more immediate threat.

"News from the common people around Silas," Perry announced in good cheer after the cleared the town in the cart that still smelled like Danny's dry blood. "Lilita Morgan and Theocritus Lawrence are both in town, and both beyond pissed off. Who could possibly say why?"

Danny was allowed to absorb the information before the stock of the shotgun was turned on her temple and she knew nothing until they were rolling back into their camp.

Recovering quickly from her little nap and woken by Laura poking her so she could properly unload the day's take, Danny rolled out of the cart and whirled around the camp looking for Motherfucker In Charge and her little mad scientist too. Perry regarded her with amusement until Danny opened her mouth.

"What the almighty fuck do you mean 'Lilita Morgan is in fucking town'?" Danny went straight for Perry and LaFontaine, sidestepping Laura, who did the rumble growl in her chest again. "Do you have any idea-?"

"Your little doctor friend followed you and now big, bad, Mother is coming to collect her little girl. Am I close?" Perry snapped in response, calmly pulling her sniper rifle out of its case for cleaning. "I'm sure you have some romantic notion, going dashing in there to save the princess from the terrible step-mother and riding off into the sunset. I dealt with some business while you were in the bank, your brother is indeed in town and was delighted to hear about how close you are to home."

Danny cocked an arm to deck LaFontaine, seeing red quite literally when Perry was in between them, pushing Danny back with a firm hand on her lower stomach.

"Back off, and I won't have to shoot you," Perry threatened quietly, hand spreading warmth through Danny's alert body, "this doesn't have to go badly, you know."

Danny kept the vicious urge to protect the good doctor at bay long enough to divert her attention down to Perry's calm storm of a face. The sniper wasn't angry, though LaFontaine stared at the back of her head like Perry had lost her mind. Their hands curled into fists and gave Danny the first homicidal stare she'd seen from the mad one.

Jealousy, perhaps? Danny filed that piece of minutia away for future use. "Are you insane? People who lay hands on me generally end up dead," Danny threatened right back. Perry smirked so she knew it wasn't the best idea.

The warm hand trailed lower for just a moment. "You agree that Ms Morgan will be dispatching with the good doctor soon then? Some girls like a little danger."

LaFontaine flushed a violent shade of red and stormed off to help Laura with the unloading of the money. Perry kept her attention squarely on Danny's increasingly confused face.

Danny's eyes darted from Perry to the other two, the reality of her guess sinking in with a rush of attention to her lower body and an immediate interest in the curve of Perry's neck and her gaze dropping from Danny's eyes to her lips.

"You not interested in living much longer?" Danny goaded the other woman into betraying any dishonesty in her advance. Post-action, well, action, was more common than not and Danny couldn't completely buy Perry drinking her fill from LaFontaine or Laura.

“Your brother isn’t the most charming of men, you must have taken all of the attractive Lawrence traits while you were still inside your mother,” Perry didn’t answer, her hand still not moving from the ever lower press of pressure. Danny stepped closer, playing chicken was a Lawrence speciality and she was thus far undefeated. “Don’t insult me by pretending any of us are going to live to see grey hair.”

Danny pulled back, losing. “I’ll tend to the horses, Miss Perry.” Danny wished she had her hat, the hat always worked best with women.

Oh well, there would at least be the amber joy in the bottles Perry brought back with her from abandoning her post.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

  
This man was insufferable, Carmilla could hear Mattie thinking the same. His bravado, the cocky walk, the way he hadn’t taken off his broad hat when he entered Mattie’s office. There was disrespect piling up against him and Carmilla saw the flash of metal as Mattie opened the top drawer of her desk.

“What the hell-?” Mattie’s question was cut off by a familiar smirk and startling blue eyes appearing from beneath the hat. The man removed it to reveal a handsome, angular face with a strong jawline and a closely cropped head of ginger hair. Carmilla’s heart turned to ice while Mattie grabbed the pistol sitting in her desk to aim it at the man. He held his hands up, that blasted smirk not moving despite the clear and present danger to his very life.

“No need for that,” he tried to assure Mattie, shrugging amicably when she refused to put down the weapon. “Have it your way, ma’am.”

Mattie flinched, Carmilla held back a smile. Mattie hated nothing more than that particular title being bestowed upon her. “Who are you, aside from a soon to be dead asshole?”

His blue eyes twinkled and the sense of dread surrounding Carmilla grew stronger. “My name is Theocritus Lawrence, you may have heard of me and my family?”

Mattie dropped the gun instantaneously and rose from her ostentatious chair. Carmilla mimicked the movement, glaring steadily at one of the Lawrence boys. The one her Danny hadn’t killed in apparent cold blood, presumably. He looked like her, even had the same disregard for his own life. What did those parents do to have such lackadaisical children? Theocritus and Mattie stared at each other, him with the confidence of his family name, her with the home ground advantage. Carmilla tried to make herself small so as to avoid being caught in the inevitable crossfire.

“And what might a Lawrence Son want with little old me?” Mattie asked, doing an admirable job to keep her voice brave and confident. “I believe having the police force in the bag is more than enough to control a town this small, so why would you come to me?”

Theocritus smiled more openly, but Carmilla saw the ice of murder in his eyes. They didn’t have the gentle warmth of Danny’s, which wasn’t saying much anymore. If she was going to go robbing banks with her new best friends, then Carmilla could dash all memory of kindness hidden beneath the killer gleam in her eyes. She was no better than her siblings or her father. Not anymore.

“I have misplaced my baby sister, and would ask your help in finding her, Miss Belmonde,” he explained, turning up the smarmy charm. When he saw Mattie was having none of it, he placed his hat back on his head and stood straighter. “I have eye-witness accounts from a town leagues away from here that my sister was seen in the company of the, let’s say, de facto mayor’s doctor daughter. A,” he paused to rifle through his pockets, searching for his notes, Carmilla felt a cool trickle of sweat run down her spine, “Lilita Morgan.”

Carmilla gripped her hands within each other, her knuckles going white with worry and fear. Mattie considered his request, seemingly aware of Carmilla’s role in his little search.

“Why do you think this doctor child is here?” Carmilla couldn’t believe Mattie didn’t sell her out immediately. Mattie was one of the few who knew almost everything about Mother, and she certainly knew there was a girl Carmilla desperately wanted back.

“Ms Morgan has indicated that this is where her daughter earned her degree, and we figure this is where she’ll run to for help,” he explained. Mattie hummed in thought. Carmilla started to plan her way out of the room without getting shot or kidnapped. She didn’t know anything about Danny besides the fact that she was now a bank robber who was probably sleeping with one or more members of her new little gang of friends. Carmilla frowned at her own bitter jealousy, and internally slapped herself at the hypocrisy of the feeling. “That little gang of murderous bank robbers went through Ms Morgan’s town at around the same time, and now they show up here, with another member that matches my sister’s somewhat unique description.”

Carmilla forced herself to not roll her eyes, like there weren’t any other abnormally tall women in the world. Idiot boy. With a ridiculous cowboy accent that left Carmilla’s stomach dropping, Danny must have been doing an impression of her brother when asked to play male.

Mattie threw her head back and laughed, taking her eyes off the Lawrence in the room in what seemed to Carmilla to be a suicidal thing to do. "You think I have my claws into some fresh out of school doctor that has what? Seduced your dear, sweet sister?"

It must have been genetic, the corner of Theocritus' mouth tugged inward, as if he was using his canine teeth to bite the edges of his lips. Carmilla moved her hands as slowly and subtly as possible, reaching for the revolver Mattie gave her for her little turn as seductress. Mattie must have done something wrong, slipped up somehow. Theocritus had the patented Lawrence murder-face on, and both of his hands went to his hips. Mattie clearly sensed the shift in his demeanour, picking up her own gun.

Theocritus didn't go for either of the large and threatening weapons slung around his hips. "I didn't say nothing about her being a new doctor, and what gave you the idea that there was a seduction involved here?"

Mattie closed her eyes, shoulders slumping in defeat.

Danny had barely bested the younger of her brothers, both trained by the army and both as big as their sister, therefore, Carmilla decided fighting wasn't really her best option.

"The whole 'wanted woman' thing is very attractive to the right sort of girl," Carmilla interrupted whatever Mattie was going to say to worm her way out of the situation. Carmilla tried to sound like an innocent in the situation, and Theocritus replied with an interested tilt of his head. "Mother kept her favourite daughter close at home and hired the Belmonde Family to look after me here. Your sister was an adventure that stopped real quick once the defilement of my innocence lost her short attention."

Theocritus regarded her as if he was only fully recognising she was in the room and around the right age. "Dr Morgan, I presume?"

Carmilla flinched while Mattie snorted. "It's Karnstein, my brother and I were adopted," she explained.

"The dead brother or is there another?" Theocritus asked. Carmilla's felt her jaw drop. "Ah, didn't know about that unpleasantness?" Carmilla shook her head in the negative, unable to speak. "He was in the bank at the time of the massacre, Dr Karnstein, my condolences."

He almost sounded sincere, and he wasn't implying that he didn't believe his own sister to be a predator who would toss away a catch once she was done.


	6. Chapter 6

There was no way doc was still alive.

Danny didn't believe it for a moment that the good woman she'd fallen into infatuation with could outrun a woman like Lilita Morgan. Papa was wary of the woman and Papa didn't pause for just anything.

At least, that's what Danny told herself as the pleasant warmth of two drinks settled over her body. She was more willing to buy her own bullshit when she had a few drinks in her, not enough to impair her judgement but enough to dull her sense of consequence. The sniper was oh so tempting, and the doctor was either dead or tied to some rails somewhere with Theocritus Lawrence twirling his ridiculous moustache and cackling like a villain in a pulp fiction.

"Who calls their daughter 'Daniel'?" Perry was a talkative tipsy, Danny was unsurprised. LaFontaine sighed, then glared. The sniper sat ramrod straight and had an expression of fearful remorse that oddly fit her face if not her personality. "Oh."

"Yeah, 'oh'," Danny agreed with a tip of the dark amber bottle of beer. The Belmonde crew would have torn the doc to shreds and even if they didn't, Carmilla clearly thought her chances were better with Matska than with Danny. In a way Danny was proud that the good doctor had taken full advantage of the reprieve Danny bartered her life to give.

"You brother called you 'sister' though?" Perry continued, staring into the fire with unseeing eyes. "He's an asshole?"

Danny rolled her eyes, catching Laura's head tilt in agreement with Perry and LaFontaine agree with Danny herself.

"He's also really, super racist. People can be selective assholes sometimes. World's not exactly simple, Curly," Danny explained with more venom than she intended. Perry didn't look chastised which made Danny fear that her life expectancy of around a week was cut dramatically to the next thirty seconds. "Sorry, Perry, forgot about the name thing."

"No problem," the sniper replied, standing and wandering off out of the clearing with her beer in hand. Danny was both confused and relieved that she just might see tomorrow's dawn. Laura snorted only to be soundly thumped on the back of the head by LaFontaine. Danny wondered if now would be a good time to off them both, best chance she'd had all damn week.

"Ow, LaF! It's god damned funny and you know it," Laura whined, raising her hands to defend herself from further thumping. "Once is sad, twice is fucking funny."

No. That wasn’t going to help. Even tipsy as she was, Perry still held the same silent threat in her eyes as Carmilla. Danny was compelled to follow them.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If Mattie was seriously rattled by the appearance of the sole remaining Lawrence son, she didn't show it. Which, given Carmilla's experience with the woman she looked at as an older sister, was an impressive feat in impassivity.

Theocritus Lawrence was every bit as threatening as his twin sister. Carmilla was certainly rattled by how known she was to him. He connected her to Danny without even trying. There was no way he wouldn't report his findings to her Mother and then she would personally come running now her drug-addicted driver was gone and dear William was dead. Carmilla felt a chill roll down her spine at the very thought of Mother coming to Silas.

"I am going to ask you once, Doctor," Mattie began evenly, using her title for the first time since the day Carmilla turned away from the Belmonde Family, "and we are going to have an issue if you don't tell the damn truth."

"I promise I won't lie, I'm a lot of things but stupid isn't one of them," she replied a tad too fast. Mattie put it down to her nerves and set her with a searching glare.

"Pet, you are going to tell me that you were a stupid little girl who fell for a charming stranger and that's the end of it. A brief entanglement that you're perfectly happy to move on from right now," Mattie pointedly didn't actually ask. She generally didn't, Matska Belmonde suggested things and you better have an answer for whatever she was implying. Carmilla took her time with her words, there would be no more chances if she put so much as another toe out of line from here on out.

Carmilla swallowed the sudden lump of emotion welling in her throat and wondered what Elizabeth Spielsdorf was like. If she could get the woman on Mattie's side without throwing up her lunch. Though if Miss Spielsdorf was a big enough threat to warrant a revolver, Carmilla might get away with some rational hesitation.

"Danny Lawrence is shorter than her wanted posters say she is. She is eminently charming and gorgeous and she saved me from Mother's chosen murderer for me. God, Mattie, she broke into Mother's house under the guise of getting my stuff back, she was probably hunting down plans for her gang to prepare their assault. The good sheriff caught her in the act and she came limping to me and I fixed her wounds then we-"

Mattie held a hand up when Carmilla felt tears roll down her cheeks. "I am sorry your mother put you in that position, but it's done now, right?"

"Yes it is, I swear," Carmilla agreed, damn near believing it herself.

"Then you'll go and discuss Miss Spielsdorf's options in the morning? Feel free to be honest and find solace in a new overly tall woman to drool over, though I cannot promise a dashing woman of action like our bounty," Mattie noted, charming air back from her flirtation of genuine intimidation. If Danny was going to rush off with the robbers, then Carmilla should at least try to move on.

Keeping Danny away from big brother and Papa Lawrence was still at the forefront though.

"She doesn't deserve being given to those men though, Mattie. Terrible person or not," Carmilla argued, making it clear that she wasn't pro-Danny but anti-Lawrence and Sons', a feeling Mattie shared.

"Alright, we kill her, screw big daddy Lawrence's imminent arrival in our humble town," Mattie agreed. The tone she took made it clear that this was the last concession she was making on the subject of Danny Lawrence and any other attempts at mercy would be met with tossing Carmilla to her Mother for murder or whatever fresh hell she had planned for her darling daughter.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
Danny stumbled through the darkness after Perry. The woman didn't really deserve the embarrassment Danny had inadvertently brought upon her by her two supposed closest friends. Danny would regret responding to the gentle flirting Perry had been doing since the second bank in the morning, right now she had to apologise.

"Perry, you still conscious out here?" Danny called into the friendly dark of night. "Please don't be dead. Crazy and Tiny will go full wild and feral children if you aren't here to make them both stop it and I'll just shoot 'em so you have to be okay."

"Can you go fucking laugh at me with the other mother fuckers, shoot 'em if you have to, don't freaking care this time," Perry snarled from behind the largest tree around. Danny ducked around it and tripped over Perry's extended and crossed legs, falling forward until she braced herself for the scraping pain of the woodland ground. It hurt about half as bad as she expected. "You can't shoot them if you break your you."

"Oh shut up, you're the one giving me a freaking headache, messes with a girl's balance and coordination," Danny grumbled as she flipped herself over and propped herself up against the same tree as Perry. "What's happened twice? I am not asking either of them. Shooting and such things will follow when they giggle."

"I didn't have the most open parents, they didn't like me liking girls exclusively," Perry explained, seeming to sober immediately. Danny left her hand open palm up on her own thigh. "They liked Sus-LaFontaine until they figured themselves out and had the right words for it."

"Oh," Danny breathed, barely making any noise.

Perry slipped her surprisingly soft hand into Danny's work-roughened offered hand. Their fingers slipped together and Danny squeezed in comfort and silent support. "Yeah, 'oh'."

"They'd hate me," Danny offered while she nudged Perry with her shoulder. "I have been an excellent rebellion to more than one mass-murdering bank robber with pet idiots."

Perry’s sad eyes stared up at her. They didn’t change even as her red lips curled into a smile at Danny’s terrible joke.

“Weirdly, I think they’d like Laura just fine, mass-murderer or not,” Perry admitted quietly, “at least she’s ‘normal’.”

“Fuck normal,” Danny burst out and to her feet by reflex more than anything else, “I mean, don’t, I’m getting the feeling that she’s a biter and I would not go there with the whole wild child routine.”

Perry clumsily got to her feet, hands outstretched for Danny to balance her unsteady wobbles. “I do worry about her sometimes,” she agreed before raising her hands to comb through Danny’s hair.

Danny let her because, well, she was dead anyway. Why not?

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

  
The chosen target was tall, gorgeous, and had a quiet intelligence to her face that Carmilla absolutely did not connect with her wayward lover. Not at all. They were done and she was going to move on with this new woman and do the damn job Mattie set for her with every effort she had.

The morning went weirdly, Mattie wasn't present for breakfast and Theocritus' terrible scent clung to Mattie's offices and the entire building. The man tainted every single room he'd been in and even ones he didn't. Carmilla considered setting her clothing on fire to get the smell out of them.

Carmilla spent her morning clutching a mug of dark coffee and looking out over the Silas quad. A quiet examination of the students, both new and old led her to the foreign exchange student with the important father. Blonde hair pulled back all practical like, Carmilla could see this Elizabeth making someone very happy one day. She didn't think it would be her, the ache for danger hadn't subsided since the last Lawrence son left the building. He barely sated it, and she felt empty after some threats and the vague mentions of her lover.

The very same woman who had killed thirty people, some of whom were in Mattie's employ, without remorse or hesitation. Carmilla was perversely proud of Danny for worming her way out of her family's clutches by signing on with the crazies. That's probably where Mattie was, berating the local police not in Lawrence and Sons' employ for their failure to kill them, if not capture them.

Mother would be arriving in town soon, Carmilla knew that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Mother would know where she was and she had lost her safety vagabond to a gang. Mattie was perpetually talking big about standing up to the woman, but was always cowed in the end. Carmilla would be handed over in the end and then she would be locked in a tall tower if not immediately killed.

Having an important father meant little to Carmilla. Compared with big daddy Lawrence, only the President's husband would impress her at this point. The wayward daughter was almost as storied as Danny Lawrence at this point, and Carmilla only held a passing interest in the few images she had seen of the girl. Where Danny and Spielsdorf were tall, Little Laura Hollis was a veritable let down in Carmilla's romantic expectations.

Elizabeth Spielsdorf's father was a diplomat to some foreign nation Carmilla didn't care about. This was important to Mattie on some kind of trade related grounds that Carmilla didn't listen to, all the better for her to play dumb when the time came for her to disengage from the woman. One way or another.

Mattie wouldn't believe her lie forever, she was much to keenly intelligent for that.

Carmilla drained the last of her coffee, setting it down next to her dorm room door for the men in the Belmonde Family's employ to see to, Mattie would only let her have the best service. Carmilla regretted fighting against her desire to demand a hotel room rather than the needed dormitory option. Spielsdorf wasn't an idiot according to the information Mattie's men provided her with, and she would wonder why a student had the means to live such an expensive lifestyle.

Putting on her best coat, Carmilla ventured out of the building while contemplating the best way to 'accidentally' run into her target. Spielsdorf being a foreign exchange student would only help her, given the plan Carmilla was going forward with.

The grass was verdantly green and the sky was obnoxiously blue, both of which set off Miss Spielsdorf's rather simple attire and practical hair. Carmilla wondered what Mattie planned to do with this girl when Carmilla had successfully seduced her into compliance.

She approached Elizabeth Spielsdorf like she was a bomb about to explode, which she just might be if she flat out told Carmilla to fuck off. There was no way Carmilla was getting away from that unscathed.

"Excuse me, Miss?" Carmilla started with a sheepish grin. Elizabeth Spielsdorf's eyes were on her immediately and she was not happy being torn away from the book she held open in her lap. "Sorry to bother you, but I'm running a poll on student opinions concerning the so-called Massacre Robbers?"

The girl's eyes raked over her with an attention to detail that had Carmilla shifting her weight around to appear more innocent and genuine.

"I have more thoughts on them than a simple poll could hope to contain and you aren't on the school's journalistic team," she noted, though Carmilla was given a boost to her confidence by the closing of the book after a carefully applied bookmark. "Therefore, you're either turned on by the violence or you're new and part of the criminology courses."

Carmilla shrugged, having planned this out in advance so the lies would come out as if they were the truth. "Heard you're a worldly kind of girl with your daddy being who he is and wanted a foreign perspective on our very local problem."

"Betty," the blonde responded after the longest six seconds of Carmilla's life, extending a hand to shake and motioning for Carmilla to join her on the ground. Carmilla's opinion on 'roughing it' had changed drastically over the last month and she thanked Danny for that silently even if she never got the chance to do it in person. "You're all barbarians for letting this continue for as long as it has already."

Carmilla settled down with her elbows on her knees and a keen interest in Betty's opinions on the matter. She wouldn't even have to fake it, not really. Carmilla had all kinds of opinions about the three assholes who took her drifter and killed her little brother.

"They're very hit and run and are you going to play hero with people known for leaving banks full of bodies behind them?"

Betty leaned in to glare at her for daring to question her summation of the situation. "And law enforcement doesn't do anything to prevent this from happening again? Does this backwater not have an army to keep its people alive? How many more have to die?"

That was the moment the gunfire started.

Carmilla was on her feet and looking in the right direction first. Her attention was naturally drawn to the bank across the grass area in the middle of town. There was an expensive restaurant and the police station. There was a flicker of light from the postal offices but Carmilla was more worried about helping Betty to safety. She wasn't about to let the damn barbarians take another giant from her.

"At least one more bank full apparently," she growled, pulling Betty away from the bank and toward her dorm room.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
“Your mad scientist friend is going to kill me for this, fuck how much I’m worth,” Danny grumbled underneath her breath while she made deliberately slow work of Perry’s shirt.

Perry's head lolled backward, her hands travelling up and down Danny's forearms, digging her nails into flesh when Danny bit and sucked on a particularly sensitive spot on her neck. Instead of feeling like a sure thing, Perry appreciated the very obvious declaration of interest both by Danny's actions and the more physical signs she shamelessly ground against Perry's hips.

"LaFontaine had their chances, I think I'm done waiting and I am so ready to let go for once," Perry managed to say between gasping breaths. Danny responded by hoisting Perry up by her thighs and pressing her into the tree with an insistent need and force. Perry groaned, pulling Danny's lips back to her own once her shirt was fully open and long hands were allowed to explore.

LaFontaine was going to shoot her in the back of the head and she wouldn't hear it coming. Either that or Tiny Laura was going to get protective over her maternal figure or carry out some deluded revenge on behalf of Carmilla. Danny paused at the thought of the doctor, wondering how likely it was that they would ever meet again.

Danny didn't like their chances.

Therefore she was seizing the day while it lasted. Robbing a bank did send a rush through her veins that only the joy of winning a duel to the death matched. For once, she could say that everyone in the killings of the day were somewhat deserving, the world was a little bit better off without them alive. Probably.

Perry tangled her fingers in Danny's hair, yanking it back to attack her jaw and neck with rough, teeth-filled kisses. Danny's hands wandered across her stomach, venturing upward to tickle along the bottom of her ribs. Perry's grip tightened as Danny bit down especially hard as she reached Perry's breasts.

"You're willing to die for sex? What is wrong with you?" Perry had to ask. Danny Lawrence was know for how well she survived, the bounty on her head was more than enough evidence for her sense of self preservation. Danny groaned into her neck and it was not a pleasant one. "Sore subject?"

Danny reluctantly pulled herself back while keeping her hands moving and her hips pinning Perry to the tree, hitting the right spot every now and then. "I'm dead when you hand me over to my brother anyway. I figure, why not have some fun before I die?"

If Perry felt guilty, she sure didn't show it, guiding Danny's lips back to her own for a tender brief kiss. "If you're looking for an apology-"

Perry was cut off by an expert roll of Danny's hips and let her head fall back against the trunk of the tree, staring at the night sky with new appreciation.

"You're right, too much talking."

  
  


 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

"That was a stimulating afternoon," Betty remarked when they were safely inside Carmilla's fake dorm room. Her chest heaved with the effort of running away and the fear of the Massacre Robbers. Carmilla knew they didn't kill people who weren't direct witnesses and felt no such fear. They were scared children trying to cover their own asses by killing their way out of being identified. The robbers didn't scare her one bit.

"Someone needs to step in and kill the bastards," Carmilla snarled with more malice than she intended. "They've taken enough, certainly enough to retire to lands far, far away, so why the fuck don't they?"

Carmilla leaned against her dorm room door with her head tilted back and her eyes squeezed shut. She felt Betty's eyes on her and had to meet her curious stare. Betty was looking at her like she was a foreign creature with unknown motives.

"What?"

"Have you lost someone to them?" Carmilla wasn't manipulating this girl into playing turncoat or whispering in her father's ear on behalf of the Belmonde Family and Syndicate. Mattie would have to give Carmilla something damn good for the senior Spielsdorf if this was going to work. "Or just a big pile of money like the many, many totally straight and narrow people in town."

"My girlfriend," she answered, truthfully enough. Betty settled herself in Carmilla's fake room, removing her jacket and sitting herself down on the bed Carmilla had only a single night's rest in. "Came here to ask a friend for help."

"Matska Belmonde, or perhaps Danny Lawrence?" Carmilla's jaw dropped. The confusion took over and she wasn't exactly amenable to the knowing smirk on Betty's face. "The crime boss and the woman known in my country as a de-fictionalised Percy Blakeney roaming about the countryside with guns cocked and a most charming demeanour."

Carmilla tripped over her own feet and collapsed onto the bed next to Betty, smug know-it-all that she was turning out to be. Carmilla rolled over to lean on her elbow as seductively as possible considered the power imbalance.

"Mattie, she's a friend of my family. The Lawrence girl will be caught and sent away soon enough," Carmilla tried to cover the potential holes in her story. "Mattie's looking to grow the organisation and a doctor is a great way to do that since her usual one has committed suicide rather suddenly and recently."

"You're a doctor?" Betty reeled back in shock, eyes narrowing. "And you're talking to me because Matska Belmonde wants my father's attention and loyalty, or at the very least a favour or two."

Carmilla sighed. "I am not great at this, am I?" Betty giggled.

"Did you really lose a girlfriend to them?"

Carmilla nodded, stopping herself when the over-eagerness felt like too much. Betty shrugged as if that was good enough for her.

"What does Ms Belmonde want?" Betty asked with a sigh.

"No clue, she doesn't tell me anything, like ever," Carmilla said while pulling herself up to sit a respectful distance away from her new sort-of friend. "I might have run away from being a mob doctor for, well-"

"Love?"

"Infatuation and squeamishness, don't give me that kind of credit."

"I'm in dorm 107, have her send a courier I suppose," Betty caved quickly to Carmilla's terrible attempt at manipulation. Carmilla was struck by the notion that she wasn't so much great at her temporary job as Miss Spielsdorf wasn't the innocent little flower Mattie had made her out to be. "Might end up with a friend during my brief time here."

Carmilla snorted, "Mattie does a lot of things well, but friend is not one of them."

"I meant you, actually," Betty mumbled, letting her chin fall to her chest with a disappointed exhale. "People always want me for something around here. Someone's father always wants to have words with my father and clearly I'm the best way to set that up."

Carmilla made a snap decision, wondering if the bank robbers had already handed over Danny to her brother now he was sniffing around town. "I've become recently enamoured with brief, untethered relationships. My girlfriend wasn't so much a girlfriend as a dalliance."

Betty's head jerked up, her face stuck between confused and really, really interested. "Seriously?"

Carmilla reached out to intertwine their hands, "were you doing anything else with your afternoon? I'm going to presume that daddy has your education covered by tutors and the foreign student bit is a honey pot to field the other kind of proposition."

Betty stared at her like Carmilla was suggesting Betty herself was the Scarlett Pimpernel. "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't."

Carmilla forgot Danny freaking Lawrence and her perpetual dangerousness for a few minutes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is anyone even reading this?


	7. Chapter 7

“For a spy, you’re one hell of a lover,” the diplomat’s daughter said into the still air of the morning. “You know, I’ve been wondering why you’ve taken this room in particular.”

Carmilla’s racing heart drowned out Betty’s words. “What?”

Betty pulled away and swung her legs off the bed. “This room belonged to the reason my family is even here.”

Thanking herself for not answering Betty’s questioning regarding her name, Carmilla mounted a distraction attempt. “Some first year students importing the good stuff over the border?”

Carmilla brushed blonde hair off Betty’s neck, kissing the pale, bruised skin while her hands pulled bare hips back from the edge of the bed. Betty leaned back into the embrace, letting her head fall back onto Carmilla’s shoulder.

“No,” she whimpered, “Doctor Frankenstein, or close enough.”

“Oh.”

Carmilla halted her lips and her grip went slack. “Which isn’t a closely guarded secret.”

The panicking in her mind kept on going like it always did when she was put on the spot. Mattie was out of her mind for thinking that this was a job Carmilla could do. Carmilla searched for a reason she could know who the elder Spielsdorf was after that wasn’t the truth and came up blank.

“This was my room too. I know who you’re here for,” she admitted. She moved to get dressed. “They’re long gone.”

Betty sat silently for the time it took Carmilla to find her underwear in the jumble. “Your boss is an asshole.”

“She’s an acquired taste,” Carmilla defended Mattie reflexively. “Mattie’s been raised to see people as pawns.”

“So you aren’t Carmilla Karnstein?”

Carmilla stopped getting dressed, standing lamely with her shirt hanging limply from her hands. Outside, an expensive new luxury car pulled up outside the Dean’s house. Betty didn’t seem to care about her own nudity, standing to take Carmilla’s shirt and pull it over her head.

“And you aren’t one of Lilita Morgan’s collection of orphaned ‘wards’?” Betty pushed. She moved closer and closer to Carmilla’s retreating body until she had the doctor backed against the wall. “Has your ‘friend’ told you that Madame Morgan is on her way here right now?”

Carmilla couldn’t breathe. Betty noticed and backed off, breaking eye contact while spotting her own discarded pants.

Mother couldn’t be coming. There wasn’t any evidence that Carmilla had come back to Silas. Mother knew damn well that Mattie would have her killed on sight for coming back. The idea that Mattie told Mother crossed her mind. She smacked it down.

“Why?” Carmilla’s voice broke and she let herself fall into a coughing fit to clear her throat. Betty was content to wait. “They tolerate each other, that’s all. Just,” Carmilla felt her breathing grow faster, “just business.”

“I’m sure my father won’t mind you seeking asylum with us, could always use another doctor on the team,” Betty offered, sliding her fancy jacket onto her shoulders. “All we care about is getting Susan LaFontaine and bringing her to justice for her crimes against our people.”

“They,” Carmilla corrected reflexively. Betty’s head tilted to the side before accepting the correction without a fight. “No clue what happened to them after the unpleasantness came out.”

“Tell your boss I don’t appreciate those who don’t care for their own people.” Betty kissed her cheek and then she was gone.

“Fuck.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
Danny woke to a cool metal pressed against her temple, bringing her back to reality in an instant. She opened her eyes and took in the blue light of pre-dawn and lifted her head from Perry's shoulder to see Laura and LaFontaine standing over her with their guns drawn and murder in their eyes.

"So worth it," Danny moaned out through a sleepy smirk. Deciding to try her luck, she leaned back down to lay a gently kiss on Perry's bare shoulder. LaFontaine gripped the shotgun tighter, stopped only by a nudge from Laura. "Can I help you two? I should probably clean up a little if you want a turn too."

Danny would happily go to her grave knowing that all three of her kidnappers at least considered it, the smug satisfaction was more than enough for her if another meeting with her doctor wasn't a possibility. LaFontaine shook themselves free of the notion well before Laura reigned in her own senses.

"Get. Up," LaFontaine ordered, placing Danny's eyes directly in the somewhat unnecessary sights of the shotgun. That would be an excellent way for Perry to wake and face the day, covered in blood, bone, and brains of her brand new lover. "Now."

Laura seemed like she was there in support rather than outright hostility, maybe Tiny didn't immediately think the worst of Danny. Small victories.

Danny wondered how much longer Perry was going to pretend she was asleep, no way a military trained sniper was sleeping through the person wrapped around them being literally held at gunpoint. Had these two even met their leader properly? Danny understood and all she had was a kidnapping and a night of fun.

“Told you they’d try to kill me,” Danny gloated to Perry, no way was she facing this alone without a shirt on. Her coat was busy keeping Perry covered and warm enough yet Danny only had the bandages constantly wrapping themselves around her wound-riddled body and her rough pants to keep her warm. It wasn’t enough in the chill of the morning. “I feel like I’m owed a Round Four.”

“Stop trying to get yourself killed, washing grey matter out of this hair is a damn nightmare,” ordered Perry, rolling to clutch Danny’s coat to her bare chest. Laura’s eyes went skyward though LaFontaine was angrier than before, face burning to match their hair.

“Excuse you, I am succeeding in getting myself killed, thank you very much,” Danny corrected brightly, grinning up at the gun barrel threatening to kill her at any moment. "Think about the diseases I have and have you thought about the pregnancy risks here? You might be stuck bringing up my kid!"

Perry smacked the back of Danny's head knowing damn well that it wasn't a possibility. "Stop it, and stop it now or we can talk about keeping you bound and gagged."

At that Danny fell back to the uncomfortable ground laughing hysterically. Perry flushed bright red and glared at Laura until she scampered off to fetch them both some clothing. She didn't do anything to stop the execution-face LaFontaine had on and Perry's wordless staring at their bounty wasn't helping matters.

"Well you could be! I don't know how viable I am now," Danny lied while hopping to her feet. LaFontaine strangely kept the shotgun aimed at around her hips, though Danny had no idea why. "I was unaware the two of you had a thing, you're both great at hiding it."

"News from in town says her brother's sniffing around, says he has a lead on sister dearest. Care to explain?" LaFontaine snarled, avoiding Danny's words though they did flush a brilliant shade of red extending down to their neck. "Is the whole bounty thing just a way of drawing in other people on the wanted list?"

Danny did not get enough sleep for this crap. Just because her and Theocritus were twins didn't mean that they were so in sync that they could communicate from Carmilla's little town to Silas University and the surrounding small city without any visible signs of being in contact at all.

Danny was going to die because Crazy was jealous.

Which sounded about right to her.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

  
Carmilla wasn't going back to Mother if it killed her. She watched Danny Lawrence kill a sheriff because he was in her way, she knew what look crossed a person's face before they pulled the trigger. Carmilla knew deep down that she would kill Mother if it came to that, be it by knife or by gun.

Lilita Morgan had other plans for her little sparrow failing completely at leaving the nest. Running to Belmonde Family was by far the stupidest thing her daughter had ever done, and she was including the supposed brief dalliance with the Lawrence girl. That was beyond distasteful to Ms Morgan. Such a wretched, family-killing, disgraced urchin born from a poisonous tree. If she had her way, the entire family would be burned away from the entire nation and replaced with the much more agreeable Hollis woman.

Carmilla was staying as out in the open as possible. There was an off chance that one of Lawrence's men would happen upon her and save her from the fate Mother had planned. She knew how much she was worth in bait to Theocritus, at least, how much he seemed to think she was worth.

There was no way Danny hadn't moved on with one of the robbers, adrenaline-fuelled situations tended to do that to a person. Carmilla knew she wouldn't hold it against her 'dalliance' in the long term, remembering the coffee-tainted taste of Elizabeth's lips fondly. Worse, Mattie had a point and she could be content, if not happy, with Betty Spielsdorf which was a whole new level of weird to Carmilla. A lifetime of being everyone's second choice and now she had her pick of tall, attractive, sought-after women.

"Daughter," came that sickly sweet voice from behind her, a shadow darkening her beautiful sunlight. If it was anyone else, Carmilla would have jumped out of her skin. Mother's disconcerting voice was beyond a normal occurrence for her that it didn't grate on her nerves like it obviously did for the university students in the attractive grassy area. "You have taken far too long in getting home."

"Well, pregnancy will do that to a girl," Carmilla threw over her shoulder, mostly to delight in hearing her usually all-knowing Mother brought low by a simple lie. Carmilla frowned even as Mother squawked behind her, she hadn't exactly asked Danny about it, not knowing the right words. She did a quick basic check on herself over the last week and determined that she might not be lying. That new-age area of medicine wasn’t her area of expertise and the faculty were all in either Mattie or Mother’s hands.

"I don't believe you," Mother snarled, fingers curling in Carmilla's hair, dragging her to her feet in one smooth motion. Carmilla went with the gesture willingly, saving her hair even as blood drained from her face. Mother was a vibrant shade of red, like the kid she might have to raise with-

Nope, not going there, not now, maybe not ever.

"Hello, Mother, how's your driver doing?" Carmilla went for overly polite, the only real way to deal with Mother when she was monumentally pissed off like this. "Is he still a morphine addict or have you tired of his services?"

If Mother was expecting her little wallflower, she was about to be sorely disappointed. As it was, Lilita Morgan's face twisted into an unpleasant mix between outrage and disgust.

"Your little girlfriend saw to it that he had full access to my stores, the overdose was inevitable," she lamented, turning to drag Carmilla into the general direction of the police station by her hair. Carmilla went quietly, fully aware that she was worth more to the police than she was to Mother.

"'Little' is not the word I would use," Carmilla goaded Mother further for the hell of it. She couldn't keep at Betty, her heart wouldn't let her out of some perverse sort of loyalty to a woman who saved her, who got shot three times for her. Mattie would be done with her, Mother already wanted to kill her. Carmilla had death or Danny in her future and Lawrence and Sons' was the fastest way to achieve either of those goals.

Mother dragged her for so long that she was starting to get concerned over some kind of permanent hair loss. Eventually, they stopped outside some fancy restaurant Carmilla knew all the most corrupt of cops ate at. There was the sounds of a scuffle going on inside until a grown man shattered the windows with his body.

Carmilla and her Mother watched the ginger-haired man stand, brush the glass off himself, then meet their eyes with that damn cocky smirk.

Theocritus Lawrence, followed quickly through the window by his twin sister, Danny Lawrence.

Before Carmilla could process this information, two bank robbers came spilling out of the restaurant's door.

 

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

LaFontaine demanded they get on with their plan. There was no convincing them otherwise, though only Perry tried half-heartedly when Danny didn't seem to care either way whether they handed her over to her brother or not. Danny was directed to dress herself and get ready to meet her maker, somewhat literally if Theocritus had got word to Papa Lawrence.

"Until we hit that bank in town, there's no way my family saw you guys as more than a minor annoyance. A political relations problem for Papa down the line once he has Hollis assassinated," Danny explained as she was marched into town ever so slowly. The horses and carriage was left in some supposedly secure location that Danny wasn't allowed to know. Tiny tensed in front of her, Danny smirked. "Taking their money and only offering the wayward daughter in recompense? We are all dying today."

Laura shook herself with a small skip in her step, hand going to the over-sized revolver. The shotgun at her back dug in unpleasantly at her not even remotely healed bullet wound and Perry's breath hitched before going completely silent.

"Then again, brother dearest will want me alive to deliver to Papa. I might see tomorrow, you are all very, totally dead," Danny kept going, it cheered her up though she was basically walking to the hangman's noose. LaFontaine's gun started to dig into her skin, causing her to shut up real fast.

"Laura?" Perry called gently. Laura almost jumped clean out of her skin at the noise. Danny knew what was worrying her, mother troubles and all that, but watching the woman who beat a man to death with her bare hands behave like a nervous rabbit was entertaining to her.

"Yeah?" Tiny replied after clearing her throat. The attempt at calm didn't fool anyone.

"You want to go ahead and get somewhere to watch the door for us?" Perry asked in a way that made it sound like a doctor's order. Danny wondered how Laura would get along with the doc given their combined maternal issues, then decided she didn't want to find out.

Laura scampered off around the next corner, and that was the last Danny saw of her until things went sideways.

The shotgun pressed her to turn the very same corner less than thirty seconds later and she was gone. Tiny was the right word for her, Danny couldn't tell where she would even start trying to hide in such a high-class street. What were they playing at?

Realisation settled into her mind, of course Theocritus would want to meet in public. The golden boy didn't do dark corners of the night and there was no way he was going to be seen anywhere less than the most expensive places in town. Not for the first time, Danny lamented her itchy trigger finger for its work in killing the wrong brother accidentally. Junior would have the decency to do dark work in a dark place.

"Are we going to high tea?" Danny asked, keeping herself amused. "Will big brother be wearing his very best bonnet?"

The gun stabbed into her again, this time accompanied with a frustrated sigh. "Really, Per? This is what you slept with?"

Perry gave it a few steps before answering, "she's kind of hot, and I have eyes."

That did not help Danny's situation, the shotgun shifting to where LaFontaine knew damn well her freshest bullet wound resided. Danny growled at the sharp increase in pain.

"Are you still pissed you didn't get a turn? We can take a minute or two to get better acquainted behind this fine establishment if that's what you really want," offered Danny, trying to keep the pain under control so she stood a fighting chance against whatever muscle Theocritus had brought with him. LaFontaine didn't share her enthusiasm for the idea.

"Shut up and deal with dying like a normal person," Perry ordered, her hand twitching to backhand Danny's stupid face. "Or has the bout of fratricide just completely sent you mad?"

Danny giggled, better to be thought mad than a real threat. "You should see me drunk."

LaFontaine dug the shotgun in further while Perry went ahead to check out the building they were apparently going to, Danny didn't think it mattered which. Perry peered into the window of the, oh dear lord they were handing her over in a totally exposed location, a fucking restaurant with a massive window facing out onto the street. Danny could drive a car through the damn thing.

"You're a sniper," Danny tried to plead with Perry as LaFontaine pulled Danny to a halt in front of the totally made of glass door, "you're going to be killed by my brother's men the second he knows I'm actually me and you aren't pulling his leg."

"Clearly you haven't figured out how good Laura is naturally, she makes you and I look downright sluggish," Perry replied, barely breaking from her scouting of the meeting-restaurant. "We'll be fine."

Danny let her have the misguided feeling of safety, it was better to die happy than to live in fear. A belief Danny had spent the better part of two whole years fighting against with all of her might.

To her complete surprise, there were no Lawrence and Sons' paid men on the street. Theocritus must have pissed off the mob princess that murdered her family and lost rights to the tough guys in town. Danny ducked her head as a police carriage went rolling by, an officer staring at the three women standing outside an expensive restaurant with more interest than any law enforcement needed. The police were still in their employ then.

A really, really dumb plan started to form in Danny's mind.

Perry opened the door and motioned for Danny to absorb the fruits of any itchy trigger fingers first. Danny ducked her head and tried her very best to remember that Doc was hopefully to some degree safe. Anything to make all of this worth it.

Theocritus was the only person in the room. That was not encouraging.

"Sister, it's been so long!"

Danny wondered where the men would jump out from if she took the shotgun and blew her other brother away. Become the undisputed alpha sibling in the Lawrence family. As it stood, she was seriously considering her continued campaign to get Crazy to kill her.

"Shut up, idiot," she replied, getting away from her captors. Annoying the dear twin was a sport for her and she missed it sleeping and fighting her way through the country. "And stop smiling, get these nice psychopaths their bounty, and for fuck's sake don't let them get this close to you while armed."

Danny pulled out a chair and collapsed into it, the warm blood of torn open wounds running down her side. Fantastic, she thought, and busied herself with staring out the tactically ridiculous windows. The outdoors wasn't trying to sell her for bounty or shape her into the perfect heir, and there was a real pretty dark and studious type sitting on the grass outside of the largely ornamental library.

"Our father thanks you for doing your civic duty and is going to personally pay you in pure gold for your efforts," Theocritus started like Danny hadn't spoken at all. Like she was missing due to getting lost and not wanted for killing their little brother in a bout of bad reflexes.

In her effort to ignore Theocritus, her brain ticked away at the interesting set of visual inputs her conscious mind wanted to ignore. The situation was already bad enough, adding that one extra detail would only make things more complicated and harder to solve. Danny could ignore the familiar curls, the delicate hands, and the eyes that burned right through to her heart. She could remember any number of men and woman she had spent just as much time with over the last two years and fool herself into thinking they meant exactly the same to her.

That she would trade her freedom for each of their lives.

“Where’s the gold?” Danny asked, step one of the world’s stupidest plan. “Do you have a buyer for the gold lined up?”

Theocritus shifted in his chair. LaFontaine sat next to Danny with the gun aimed at her head. Perry hung back, the only person who would actually listen to Danny’s advice.

“Why are you paying in gold and not cash like a regular asshole?” Danny pushed, concealing her wince at the pain flaring up in her open wounds. “Did you miss me?”

“No, but you missed me, correct?” Theocritus smirked, crossing his legs and folding his hands on the table. Danny saw no backup for her brother and Papa Lawrence wouldn’t trust him with enough for her bounty. She ignored him, turning to face LaFontaine and Perry.

“I will tell you where the gold is if you kill him, or let me kill him,” she offered honestly. “He doesn’t have it and he’s not going to tell you where our father is keeping it.”

Theocritus chuckled. “She kills one brother and suddenly she’s got delusions of grandeur. I’m waiting for the other interested parties to arrive.”

“How much aftershave are you wearing?” Perry asked, wrinkling her nose in disgust. Theocritus flushed with rage. “Sorry, it’s bold, very brave,” she covered carefully.

“We both know I wanted you, bottom-feeder,” Danny spat. “Pull your head out of daddy’s ass and do what he can’t.”

Theocritus stood first. A gun that may have been made of gold came from his holster to point between her eyes. “He wants you dead or alive, you know?”

“No he doesn’t,” LaFontaine argued while hesitating in their aiming at one Lawrence. Danny wasn’t the one with a gun out.

“The bounty says that so they are sure it’s actually me,” Danny explained. Smirking in that way she knew pissed him off to no end. “Now it’s dead or dead.”

Danny had the benefit of declaring the little sit down done. Ducking forward, she slapped the barrel of LaFontaine’s gun toward the ceiling, using the gun firing to cause Theocritus’ trademark hesitation. Danny was around the table and tackling her brother before men started forcing their way into the dining room through the kitchen.

Perry shouted something at LaFontaine and there was another loud bang as Theocritus fired wildly while falling. The bullet caught one of his men in the chest. Danny rolled with the momentum and came up in a crouch. She used every ounce of strength she had left to haul him to his feet and force him back toward the front of the restaurant, aiming for the window.

Theocritus Lawrence crashed through the shimmering glass window shoulder first, rolling to a stop wondering why Matska Belmonde thought to bring his sister’s doctor friend and Lilita Morgan to the negotiations.


	8. Chapter 8

Danny was the only one out of the seven of them to have her wits still about her. Everyone else was either too shocked to react or were Theocritus, who had been thrown through a window and was now bleeding.

Carmilla didn't bother thinking about the numerous ways Danny's manhandling of her brother could have ended fatally, she did not care one bit if Theocritus Lawrence lived or died.

Danny landed on her feet when she hopped through the window, looming large as Theocritus stumbled to his feet. She was unarmed, he had three guns Carmilla could see. Danny managed to look more threatening than her well-armed brother by the power of her glare alone.

Theocritus got to his feet and forewent his weapons in favour of charging at his sister who dodged it easily. He stopped and swung at her face, catching her near the ears and forcing her to back up down the street a few steps. Theocritus seemed to have forgotten that he had guns in his blind urge to beat the crap out of his sister. Danny smirked.

"Papa wants me dead or alive, right?" Danny asked, dancing away from his next wild swing. "Oh, you can catch me if you can, brother dearest."

Danny took off, leaving the bank robbers staring dumbly and Theocritus flying after her by muscle memory alone.

Danny's side exploded with pain, as did her leg and her arm and her back and Danny really needed to start taking care of herself. Maybe some more heart-racing exercise in her day would help. She pushed through the pain, hoping that she wouldn't bleed too badly even if her stitches ripped open. When her stitches ripped open.

Danny ducked around the first corner she came across, knowing that her idiot brother would follow her and Laura, LaFontaine, and Perry weren't the most nimble of bank robbers. Though she still didn’t quite know where exactly Laura had hidden herself.

Danny really hoped Laura hadn't gone all the way around the block, circling back to confuse Danny in case of an escape attempt. The President's daughter was known to be whip smart and enamoured with what went on in the back rooms of bars all around the world. Danny searched her own lofty education for the right pretentious word and could only find 'pugilist' which described what she probably fought like hand to hand. This struck Danny as the likely reason the small woman carried around an overly large gun, she was unused to fighting with a ranged weapon.

Danny didn't want to go toe to toe with her. Her wounds and size would brought down upon her like a hammer striking an anvil and she would be forced to crumple.

Rounding the corner and seeing it free of people was one of the most relieving sights of her entire life.

Theocritus wasn't firing at her back, confirming that giving her body over to Papa would end up with him in her current hunted position if he even got away from the rage monster festering in their father's heart. Danny was lucky she wasn't shot on sight after the dreadful, mostly accidental shooting of her baby brother.

The which brother part was accidental, at least.

Theocritus was getting a bullet as soon as she sourced herself a gun, if she couldn't beat him to death while he attempted to restrain her for presentation to Papa.

"Stop running! You won't get far!" Theocritus shouted. Danny silently agreed as she felt the wounds all over her body threatening to burst open and kill her real quick if she wasn't careful enough. Theocritus didn't need a blow by blow account of how badly she had been damaged over the last month alone. Stupid car pulling over, stupid murderous driver, stupid Doc, stupid drifter. "Danny!"

Straight up running away wasn't going to do her any good, not in her current condition. Danny scanned the road ahead and across from her, trying to find a way to break line of sight with her brother. An alleyway presented itself and Danny flew across the roadway dodging horses and a car or two to slip in between two honest businesses that had nothing to do with either Lawrence and Sons' or the Belmonde Family and Syndicate.

The alleyway reeked of off milk and rancid meat but there was a ladder to a rooftop, one she could scale fast enough to gain an advantage on Theocritus if he even bothered to follow. There were very few people he had to disappear to remove all evidence of being close to capturing her after all. Papa wouldn't care about a delay, but a failure would mean broken bones and bruises that lasted weeks.

Danny sighed with one hand on the ladder and let her head drop to the cool metal rungs. She turned her head to face Theocritus, who was no doubt unaware of the twisted form of victory he had reached.

"Can't climb?" Theocritus huffed and puffed, clearly an age away from the regimented training Papa had all three of them attend after their mother passed away.

"Something like that," she called back, leaning heavily against the wall as her body lost the rush of adrenaline and returned to the regularly scheduled agony. That kind of thing exhausted a girl. "You'd kill 'em all to cover your own ass, right?"

Theocritus placed his hands on his hips in what Papa surely taught him was a great way to exude confidence and power. He smirked, "sure, I'd start with your little doctor friend. I wouldn't kill her, she might have information on my dangerous sister that the public simply needs to know."

Danny mustered a weak glare, playfully returned by her charming brother.

"I'm certain the Belmonde woman and the eminent Madame Morgan would love to get their hands on the wayward daughter, the people who might care about her in their dark hearts doing the murdering speaks to my tastes as a gentlem-"

Pugilist was really the right word, Danny mused idly.

Laura dropped from the advantageous position atop the two-storey building and made solid contact with the back of Theocritus' neck with her clasped hands. He crumpled under the blow while Laura landed with practised ease, mask still covering her rather famous face.

Theocritus made to look up from his position on his knees to know the face of his attacker. Laura didn't give him the chance, connecting her right fist with his left temple.

"Your brother isn't as threatening as you," Laura noted with a dismissive shrug, turning her attention to the felled man to his twin sister. Danny shrunk under her young and feral eyes. "I don't think you're worth much to us now."

Danny didn't bother backing away. There was nothing she could do if Laura decided to kill her there and then. This was not exactly how she pictured her death going, but being cut down personally by the President's lost little girl was madly amusing to Danny's overwhelmed mind.

"Financially? No," Danny agreed, leaning more of her weight onto the ladder. She was so far beyond done with running that basically nothing could persuade her away from the alleyway she'd decided to die in. "And I am not going around a-murdering with the three of you."

Laura's eyebrows drew together as the wild child considered the situation. Attention moved from one Lawrence twin to the other, as if Laura knew she had to kill someone, yet hadn't decided which. Danny felt the adrenaline surge again as her fight or flight reflexes exerted their usual pressure on the rational thinking parts of her brain. The distance between herself and Laura was one she could close before the over-sized revolver could be drawn and fired.

"Do you think that woman is going to kill your doctor friend?" Laura wondered, absently checking that her all-important bandanna was still firmly held in place. This only flared the urge to move, to act, inside Danny burn intensely hotter.

"If she doesn't, then I'm sure you three will," Danny sighed, giving in to the feeling of defeat, "no loose ends and all that noise."

Laura's hand came to rest atop her revolver. "You know who we are," she said with a shift of her weight and her neck stretching imaginary tension. "Kind of ruins the whole 'anonymous bank robbers' thing if we let you live."

"From one famous runaway to another, you're on borrowed time anyway. I'd give myself up rather than die like this."

"Oh LaFontaine or Perry will give me up long before death is on the table for me," Laura dismissed the idea entirely, "and I can see your damn eyes from here, you great big idiot. You aren't dying unless I win whatever overly violent idea you have swimming in your surprisingly quick mind."

Danny's body was betraying her intentions, her brain was not in control of the fire burning in her eyes nor the coiling muscles ready to strike out at Laura when given half a chance. "Let me go."

Laura's eyebrows shot skyward. "Why would I do that? You know who I am, and I'm not sure how great I'd go against you, even if you're about five minutes away from passing out."

Danny disagreed with her assessment, she wasn't bleeding nearly as much as her white shirt implied. There was enough time left to shoot her brother, grab her doctor, and get the fuck out of the country without looking back before she passed out and probably died from the blood loss.

"Give me a gun and let me go," she repeated, pushing away from the ladder. She missed it immediately. "Let me go and I will swear to my dying breath that I personally shot the missing Hollis girl. You and me could have had a sordid affair that I grew tired of and disposed of you quietly."

Laura took a step back in shock, drawing her revolver with one smooth motion and a concealed knife with less practised ease. Danny held up both of her hands in totally submission, letting the weight of the offer settle around little Hollis' ears. Danny was offering her death without the dying. The President would stop looking and Danny would come out of it all the more threatening.

"Say the word and I'll remove your little friends from the equation too if that's what you need," Danny offered, wondering if she could kill Perry. Probably not, but she already had no business being honourable, this wasn't the best time to be starting.

Laura closed her eyes and ducked down quickly to feel around inside Theocritus' coat, producing a gaudy revolved and a holster lined with bullets. She tossed it in Danny's general direction and opened her eyes again when the metallic crash didn't sound.

Danny fastened the holster to her chest and inspected the gun. Loaded and well-kept. Still ugly.

"You can't get away from me clean and you aren't to kill me or my friends, clear?"

Danny nodded and wondered how much she was going to hurt after not getting away cleanly from Laura Hollis.

Broken bones were the last thing she needed.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

In the brief Lawrence Family Scuffle, Carmilla narrowly missed catching a shotgun blast to the face from a swearing bank robber. Only ducking underneath a threat of Mother shooting her saved her from having her head blown off. The bank robber, stupid scarf around the lower half of their face, went to reload and shoot again. The second robber crashed into the first, successfully knocking the gun away and restraining the wild struggles with practised ease. The ensuing shifting and movement dislodged the hastily done masks.

Carmilla watched the scarves covering their faces fall to the ground, locking on to an unfamiliar face first then sliding to her side to find one face that she absolutely knew and despised.

"LaFontaine," Carmilla growled, wondering how the mad scientist was even allowed to leave Silas University in anything but handcuffs. "I should shoot you."

The bastard blanched and reached for their other guns while Mother grabbed her hair before Carmilla could do the same. The unfamiliar woman exerted more force over her little friend.

"It wasn't me, Karnstein, anyone could have put those lungs in the Dean's bed and you know it!" LaFontaine shouted as they were forced away by the other woman, their attention fully focused on recapturing Carmilla's drifter. They disappeared around the corner after the Lawrence twins and left Carmilla alone with the woman currently yanking on her hair.

"Shut up you stupid little girl!" Mother shouted, pulling Carmilla's hair until her neck hurt. Whatever she was going to say next was lost to the report of gunfire mere feet away from Carmilla's head.

"Let her go Ms Morgan," Mattie's voice broke into their stunned silence. Carmilla didn't dare turn, didn't dare give Mother the ammunition. She would figure out the one thing she could say that would make Mattie want to kill her on sight. One of her only friends and a single statement could end it, just one little clarification and Mattie's last straw would break and Carmilla would be dead.

"My daughter and I are having a discussion about her choice in romantic partner at the moment, Miss Belmonde," Mother hissed at Mattie, knowing for sure that she was for once at an extreme disadvantage in terms of power. "As soon as Danny Lawrence is dead, you may have this one for whatever you have planned."

"Fuck," Carmilla swore under her breath, wishing that Mattie hadn't heard while bracing herself for the oncoming eternal darkness of death.

Mattie sighed like she was disappointed rather than angry. "That was her then?"

"Like a knight coming to save the little princess," Mother growled, yanking particularly hard on Carmilla's hair. Carmilla couldn't stop the cry of pain that escaped.

"All I asked was loyalty, is that so much to ask of you?" Mattie's heartbreak faded and it faded fast. Carmilla heard the click of a gun and cried out again when Mother pulled her to face Mattie. "Going to run off with your little girlfriend and her merry murderers while claiming some kind of sad moral superiority over me and my associates?"

"Again, she's like six feet tall, 'little'-"

Mattie cut off Carmilla's suicidal comedy routine with another shot, this time inches from Carmilla and Mother. There was no way Mattie cared about Mother's continued survival.

“Let me the fuck go!” Carmilla groaned, LaFontaine had beaten their friend’s hold and rounded the corner with a gun in each hand, ready to shoot Carmilla to hell and back.

The woman with the curly red hair rolled her eyes and moved so fast that Carmilla couldn’t see exactly how LaFontaine’s guns were tucked into the woman’s waistband before they could fire a single shot. The death grip returned and Carmilla turned to Mother and Mattie.

More immediate problems to deal with than a pair of quick hands.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Danny’s already aching body wanted her to stop making it move. Laura Hollis did a number on her with her bare hands and Danny kind of wanted the President to get her daughter back to see what would happen. Danny limped back to the restaurant, knowing she had until Laura counted to fifty to get out of the area with whomever she didn’t want dead. Then Tiny would be out for blood and she just might start with Theocritus.

To get the taste of Lawrence blood back into her system.

Getting to the corner and not collapsing took enough effort to made Theocritus’ gun feel like a lead weight in her hands. Forcing her way around it felt like wading through a rushing river that wanted her to drown. The blood thundering in her ears went silent. Rushing violence usually pulled her through her confrontations, yet even that was fading.

Then there was a pair of redheads and her good doctor standing between them and two furious looking older women.

Danny’s body nearly gave out then and there. Like it knew what she was going to ask of it.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

Mattie’s attention lost focus, moving to something behind Carmilla and the pair of bank robbers.

Carmilla wondered where the third went and chanced a glance over her shoulder.

Danny Lawrence wasn’t stumbling very pointedly. Her face was pale and there was blood blooming from multiple sources on her shirt. Carmilla’s heart constricted when Danny almost gave up when the curly-haired bank robber turned her attention to the newest addition. Then the robber shrugged and Danny gave them a wide berth to stand at Carmilla’s back.

“Come back here, little girl!” Theocritus Lawrence roared behind the woman Danny made her deal with. The diminutive girl wasn’t rushing, wasn’t panicked like anyone else, she was set on her target. An overly large revolver was in her hands despite the bloodied knuckles that matched Danny’s beaten body.

Theocritus looked roughly as healthy as his sister. He moaned and flinched at the pain from his wound while he came slowly to stand on the other side of the bank robbing trio. Carmilla watched Danny raise her gaudy gun against her two pursuers. She took the hint and trained her rifle on Mattie.

Danny liked screwing around with Perry. It was a genuine, no regrets, pleasure that suddenly seemed like a dim star at the edge of her vision. Standing with her Doc behind her and having a gun in her hand, that set her every nerve on fire.

Distracting her from enjoying the contact with Carmilla was Tiny and dear Theocritus pointing some serious weaponry directly at her face. Danny knew LaFontaine would eventually break free from Perry's admittedly strong hold and then Danny would be going toe to toe with three guns instead of two.

Doc had some fairly serious fire power gunning for her as well, a betrayed crime boss and a Mother that rivalled her Papa for intimidating stature.

"Drifter," Carmilla greeted cheerfully as Danny wondered what she wanted her last words to be.

"Hey, Doc, how're things?" Danny replied, keeping her voice casual with great effort. "Have a nice mob vacation?"

"Things are great. Robbed any good banks lately?"

Tiny was the first one to flinch, though Danny didn't immediately begin firing. Her instincts were very firm about not shooting unless the person was going to shoot her. Laura Hollis was distracted, not about to start shooting. Theocritus wouldn't kill her, Papa would be furious.

"Oh, you know," Danny let paused to flick her attention to whatever had distracted the First Daughter. "You fall in with the wrong crowd, there's peer pressure, pretty ladies ask you real nice like. I'm an easily led attack dog."

Tiny took half a step back and took her eyes off Danny and Carmilla for another brief moment. Danny tensed, waiting for Theocritus to notice whatever the heck was coming.

On the other side of the stand-off, Carmilla was really feeling the guilt start to set in. Mother had already lost Will to the murderers that her not-girlfriend had joined up with and was apparently sleeping with at least one of them. Mattie she genuinely regretted turning away from, but she couldn't spend her life fixing up two-bit gangsters that would never extend her the same courtesy or thought.

Neither Mother nor Mattie was all bad. They didn't have to take care of her as much as they had, giving her almost endless chances to perform to their expectations. Mob doctor and perfect daughter rankled unpleasantly inside her stomach and her heart. Carmilla wasn't yet sure if outlaw was any better, but running away seemed to be a great place to start and there was only one real option there.

An option that she missed, one that she wanted to stay in close contact with, that felt like she could be home.

"Really Sis? More women?" Danny's utterly unbearable brother forced his way into their meeting. Even Carmilla knew that Theocritus had brought the biggest gun to the stand off and was by far the most likely to start the shooting that none of their four captors had thought through all the way.

The bank robber was the only one out of the firing line of the other attackers. Mother would catch a Lawrence stray and there was no way Carmilla wasn't shooting Mattie first. Mother was a frail older woman, the shotgun would probably kick up and break her nose.

"Like you don't have a solid dozen baby Lawrence's out there, asshole," Danny snapped, regressing in age for a moment to a bratty teenager. "You planning on shooting me, or are you just waving that around to make yourself feel better?"

Danny and Theocritus didn't get along from the moment they were born. They'd nearly killed their mother in the womb and drove her to madness when they were born. It was a minor miracle that the woman lived through having another kid after her first attempt went so many different kinds of wrong.

Theocritus went a brilliant red, the angry kind Danny noted without caring. Big brother wasn't going to kill her, he feared Papa like she never would.

Laura's attention was no longer on the seven guns raised outside of the nice yet weirdly empty restaurant. Danny desperately wanted to look over her left shoulder to catch sight of whatever Carmilla and Theocritus were failing to see. Danny took a closer look at Tiny's expression, growing dread and childish fear. It occurred to Danny that with the fabric covering Laura's lower face, she was the only other person who knew exactly what was coming after the diminutive woman.

Danny's heart picked up its pace, government types held grudges harder than all the shady businessmen, de-facto mayors, bank robbers, and mob bosses in the world. If Hollis Senior was coming or sending her agents, Danny needed to get herself and Carmilla out of the immediate area now.

“This should be fun.”


	9. Chapter 9

Despite the itching bad feeling crawling up the back of Danny's spine, she wasn't the first to break from the eight person stand-off.

That particular dishonour went to the brother she wished for the umpteenth time had died like he was supposed to instead of their relatively not-terrible little brother. Theocritus' face drained of what colour it held as he took note on the anonymous woman next to him being distracted by the overly sturdy carriage that had pulled up across the town square, flanked by a small force of men on horseback in smart uniforms carrying threatening guns.

The hero for the common citizen had arrived. Stalwart and true and a wave of blinding light to fight off Lawrence and Sons' darkness. The President arrived with no fanfare. Was she looking to take out the supposed last Lawrence left standing with any power, or worse, did some sliver of a rumour find her?.

The rumour whispered, your daughter is in sight, and it's time to take her home.

Laura finally calmed herself down, agitation was suspicious and she was clearly determined to come out of this whole situation with her anonymity intact.

Theocritus shifted his aim from his sister to the armed guards the President took with her everywhere. The worry creased his face so he looked like Papa and Danny wanted to throw up. His discomfort drew the attention of the two women threatening Carmilla, their heads turning just far enough to register who exactly could rattle one of the Lawrence's so completely.

"Oh sis, you didn't," Theocritus groaned, coming for once to the exact right conclusion that she needed. "That girl seemed real nice and you remember how Papa wanted us to meet her for peacekeeping?"

Danny wondered, as his twin, if she could make peacekeeping sound quite so sleazy. The girl in question didn't flinch, but Danny would bet on her stomach turning. She figured the kick she'd get from telling Theocritus that his 'nice girl' had knocked him out cold wasn't worth being immediately blown away by Laura.

"She was real nice, I promise," Danny sneered, keeping up her end of the bargain. She only needed to convince him and then he would pass it on to Papa and Papa would make sure that the entire world knew about this new crime his malevolent daughter had committed. Like the countless worker strikes she'd shot full of holes and the mines she'd collapsed.

"Your disgusting lump of a father is here, isn't he?"

Danny considered turning around and getting the shooting of the day started with the woman's hawk-like face. In a purely shoot the messenger kind of way. Danny was doing an excellent job of ignoring that particular possibility.

"Looking for another husband, Mother?" Carmilla spat from behind Danny. She could feel the doctor's muscles tensing for impact as she said it and couldn't be more proud of her. "He's certainly someone more your speed."

Carmilla's arm was tired of holding up the gun, she was not built for this kind of thing.

A shot cracked the stand-off and Carmilla ducked her head. She didn't feel the bullet go in, nor did she feel it go out. All the knew was that the glass door of the restaurant shattered. Danny barely flinched, twitching her arm down to fire into her brother's side. Theocritus swore.

The little one that took Danny in the first place grabbed Theocritus and held him in front of her as a human shield. Mother and Mattie were immediately spooked by the bullet that didn't come from any of them. One of the well-dressed men around the President's carriage was carefully taking aim again as the others rushed into advantageous positions.

Not to be outdone, the men sworn to defend and protect any and all members of the Belmonde family came out of the woodwork like rats in a grain silo. The guardsmen were forced to fall back under the sudden hail of bullets firing at them from all angles. The simple enforcers didn't know they were technically shooting at their country's leader, they were kept dumb by the Family and would stay that way until they died.

More bullets whipped through the air around the stand-off, sending Mother and Mattie one way and the Lawrence twins scrapping with each other while the bank robbers had vanished like they usually did.

Danny turned the corner in pursuit of her gut-shot brother to see his trail of dripping blood and the last evidence of Perry pulling herself up onto the rooftop Laura had hidden herself. She made a note to not go anywhere near that building ever again. The quietly dangerous lived there, and she wasn't dealing with living in fear any longer.

"Why are you running?" Danny shouted to her brother as the battle raged behind them. "There isn't a doctor alive that can save you from me, brother dearest!"

Any attention her own pain might have demanded was silenced by the rush of killing a man. Theocritus was stumbling and tripping his way down the street while keeping a miraculous grip on his gun. Danny gave him that, Papa's training was drummed into them both after all. Danny just had two years of practical experience putting the skills to use instead of the gilded cage Theocritus lived in by his own choice.

"I'll have you killed for this, screw Papa!" Theocritus wasn't quite grasping his situation, Danny thought. "Public fucking hanging, you deserve it!"

"Hope you've got the gallows ready, you've got under an hour, idiot," Danny snapped as she skipped along merrily behind him. She kept her tone light and her gun trained on his spine, playing angry was an age old trick of her brother's. "Is he really here?"

Theocritus froze, turned, and with one hand trying to keep his blood and guts inside of himself, he glared at Danny as his face drained of colour. She sighed.

"He's here, isn't he?"

Theocritus raised his gun to pick off a Belmonde guy rounding the corner, shooting so close to Danny's arm that her finger came to rest over the trigger of her own gun. He lowered the weapon and started to back away slowly, his breathing getting shallower and heavier with each step.

"He'll kill you if he finds you here and he'll kill me if he doesn't," Theocritus forced out between his moans and groans. The Belmonde man rose to his knees behind them, only to be taken out from a precise bullet to the head. Danny only noticed the telling thump of a body hitting the ground. "One wonders why he even bothered having children, he certainly never liked any of us."

Danny raised a hand in thanks to Perry and hoped it wouldn't lead to her being the next person in her sights. "We were an accident and-"

Theocritus' eyes dropped to the ground, following Danny's. "It's an excuse to hunt you."

"Oh I know," Danny replied, "he didn't care for him any more than he cares for us, I was a threat and he found a way to deal with me."

Theocritus lost his battle with remaining upright, collapsing in front of a gun store, one of six in the humble university town. "He told me you were there to shoot me, after."

Danny sighed again and did her best to convey to her kidnappers that she wouldn't object to her brother getting medical care. She knew for a fact she missed most of the important stuff. He would live, probably.

"I was," she confirmed, wincing at the pure hatred he directed at her. "I know, I'd rather be dead than baby boy too."

Theocritus looked skyward, where their mother had explained their grandmother went when they were little more than toddlers, and frowned as he noticed he wasn't as injured as his fucking sister convinced him he was. "Promise you'll run until you run out of land to run over?"

Danny nodded solemnly, thankful that at least one person in their family had a sense of self preservation. She certainly didn't.

"He brought the bounty in the usual way," Theocritus pointed to the second tallest building in town, "he's parked out the front of the Administration building."

"I'll be sure to say hello if I see him," she promised instead of saying good-bye.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
  


 

Carmilla felt a kinship to rabbits, paralysed by fear and knowing that all the bigger creatures were better and stronger. It wasn't fun being a little rabbit. She didn't even have her poisons to fruitlessly defend herself. Going after Mother and Mattie was suicide and the Lawrence son might use her as leverage over Danny.

Forwards was the growing conflict. One way left to run.

Carmilla darted through the shattered glass of the door, making sure she didn't slice herself open from the points that failed to fall or the pieces laying scattered on the ground.

The restaurant was basically empty. What few enforcers there were now were either trying to kill each other or fleeing to safety. The staff obviously had plans in place for this kind of thing because Silas was just that kind of town. Carmilla was in a tiny minority of non-gun owners.

The only table that was set out to be served had a rifle sitting on it which Carmilla grabbed without stopping on her quest to find a safer exit from the building. It would hold maybe ten bullets, then she would be down to her handgun and her knives, tucked away in each of her boots.

Bursting out the back of the restaurant, she took quick stock of the alleyway and decided to run away from the Lawrence’s shouting at each other. Danny could handle herself, Carmilla would just be giving her another thing to worry about. A division of her attention.

She came out of the alleyway with a gun shop on her right and a closed down medical office to her left. Mattie must have been displeased with everyone she tried to replace her pet with. Carmilla wanted to feel the deepest of prides at her own skills being valued. As per usual, Mother rained on her happiness with the worst timing.

“Running away again?” Mother asked, casual and calm. Like there wasn’t a firefight going on a mere street away. “You won’t get far.”

Carmilla stopped moving, Mother had her antique shotgun ready for her. The woman’s face was cut from the glass flying around the square. Mother had seen better days.

“So finish it yourself instead of hiding being your little drug-addicted puppets,” Carmilla said. Goading Mother never ended well in the past, might as well make it fatal finally. “With William gone too you can start all over again with a new set of poor orphans to take in and mold in your own image.”

Mother raised the gun, locking on to Carmilla’s head. Carmilla braced herself for being blown away. The man she killed for her motorcycle didn’t get this much warning. Lucky him.

Mother squeezed the trigger at the same time as a bullet cracked into the barrel of her gun. The shotgun jerked downward, pointing at Carmilla’s leg instead of her face when it fired. Pain smashed through fear. Mother swore. Carmilla collapsed in agony. She didn’t see where the bullet came from nor where Mother crawled away to, tears blurred her vision.

“How the fuck does she do this?” Carmilla choked out around the pain. Maybe Danny was actually allergic to bullets. The ease in which she took them had to be something superhuman. “Not by crying about it.”

One of the finely dressed guards turned into the street, a rifle braced against his shoulder ready to fire on anything that moved. Carmilla threw herself back into the alleyway. Her calf screamed in protest. The foot it was connected to wasn’t responding as well as before. She diagnosed herself with a limp for potentially the rest of her short life. A hail of gunfire went flying by her narrow view of the street. Carmilla hoped the guardsman was caught and whoever was doing the shooting didn’t see her.

Pulling off her scarf, she set to work treating her own wound. The ball from the shotgun shell wasn’t nearly as bad as a bullet. The metal tore cleanly through her calf muscle. Experimentally moving her foot, she noted down the intense pain and lack of responsiveness in her toes and smothered herself with the scarf to muffle the scream that escaped.

“There are a bunch of cars by the Administration building,” Carmilla told herself when the shouting and shooting stopped on the street. “You can get there, it’ll be a nice walk with a cramp in your leg.”

Tying off her scarf around her wound to slow the bleeding, Carmilla rose to her shaking, partially numb feet.

“One step, then another,” she kept on talking herself through the entire walk around the all out war being fought between three or maybe four sides who probably didn’t know why they were tearing each other apart.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

Danny took her time skirting around the mayhem in the main square. Let the President, Belmonde, and Morgan sort out their differences. What did she care?

The dorm buildings were overgrown hotels stretched out so one could ride a horse at full gallop down the hallways if one wished. Danny slowly picked her way along the back of the most luxurious dorm, the one all the rich and soon-to-be rich kids got thrown into together to put horse riding theories to the test. She took the time to wonder which dorm Carmilla stayed in and it nearly killed her.

The back wall of the building ended in an abrupt corner. Danny was too busy taking in the building and the woman it played home to once that a cheap kick to her knee took her down in an instant.

A hunting knife flashed before her eyes. Danny’s right hand shot up. Her fingers caught the blade across the back of her clenched fist. Three blinding spots of pain rushed into her mind. It shut down every instinct she had except for one. Kill or be killed.

“LaFontaine!”

Danny didn’t hear Perry scream. Using her injured legs and throbbing side, Danny forced her body forward to collect her attacker underneath their ribs. Danny and LaFontaine landed in a tangle of blood and limbs. The knife went skittering away. Strong hands clapped onto her shoulders and wrenched her free of LaFontaine’s body. Danny let herself go with the other person, giving everything she had to not scream at her stitches ripping out of her skin.

“LaF! Stop,” Laura barked from behind Danny. Danny started to struggle against Laura’s hold. Throwing her off, Danny backed away from all three of them. Drawing her brother’s obscenely expensive gun, she wasn’t sure who to aim for. “You too, Lawrence! We aren’t doing this here.”

Before she was a not-so-innocent scapegoat for her Papa, Danny totally voted for Hollis Senior. Laura didn’t notice they only listened to her when she sounded like her mother. Danny got not wanting to be like your parents and decided that LaFontaine was the most immediate threat.

“Do you propose we leave the country to sort out our differences?” Perry interjected. Danny noticed dimly that Perry was much further away than someone involved in this fight should be. “Grab a car and go until we can’t be extradited.”

Laura didn’t like that. “Why?”

Perry was speechless for a second. She recovered admirably. “Did you want mummy dragging you home? Leaving the fucking country should have been the first thing we did after finding you.”

Danny heard her want to say something after that. Laura must have heard it too. Danny’s aim shifted from the stunned LaFontaine to Laura. Laura raised the revolver to Perry’s chest. Danny thought that Perry was really too far away from her partners to be there in support.

The redhead didn’t draw a weapon. She raised her hands in surrender and advanced on Laura’s shaking body. Danny was bleeding from at least two different wounds and Tiny was the one shaking like a leaf. Laura let Perry get close enough to press the end of Laura’s gun onto the flesh above her heart. She was daring Laura to shoot. Danny aimed for Laura’s shoulder, knowing that Perry wasn’t interested in killing Danny herself.

“Why do you want to leave so bad?” Laura questioned Perry barely above a whisper.

“You going to shoot me, sweetie?” Perry didn’t acknowledge Laura’s question. Danny took the opportunity to drag herself away from all three of them while LaFontaine groaned and started moving again. “No? Okay then.”

Perry’s right hand ripped the gun from Laura’s hand. Her left caught the wayward daughter of the President in the side of the head. Laura collapsed like a bag of rocks sinking in the ocean. Perry tucked the gun into her coat and spun to do the same to LaFontaine with the bottom of her boot.

“Huh.” Danny didn’t have the energy to say more. The fight or flight reflex had done its job and fucked off leaving her like a lead weight trying to move itself through water.

“Put the gun down,” Perry ordered slowly. Danny didn’t move. “Fine, don’t. I don’t actually care what you do from now on. You are not part of my problems anymore.”

Danny worried that lowering her arm would result in being unable to raise it again. “The phrase ‘thick as thieves’ suddenly doesn’t mean much. I get it, I guess.”

Perry knelt to methodically go through her former friends’ pockets and holsters for weapons. Guns and knives a-plenty came out. Perry took the guns to pieces with military efficiency and, if Danny was remembering baby brother correctly, technique.

“I suppose I should thank you for showing up when you did,” Perry said once she was convinced neither Laura nor LaFontaine were faking their unconsciousness. “It was going to take weeks to talk them into coming here and then you appear and dangle the world’s best golden carrot in front of their eyes.”

“Presidential bodyguard?” Danny took a wild guess. Perry didn’t look at money the way Laura and LaFontaine did, no hunger, no need. “Recruited from the military, some elite unit?”

Perry sighed.

“To answer your actual question,” Perry said while pulling two sets of handcuffs from her pocket and securing her two accomplices’ hands behind their backs. “Yes, I knew your brother in the military.”

Danny wasn’t sure if she should shoot or not. Even if she was sure, her right hand was next to useless for fine motor skills. Shooting with her off hand wasn’t a mountain she wanted to climb with Perry standing at the top with a bullet waiting for her. Perry didn’t rate her as a threat or part of whatever agenda she had here. Danny couldn’t relax her arm though, couldn’t make her elbow unlock. She was going to hurt herself if she shot at Perry with her arm like that.

“Funny, he didn’t mention a ginger, female, sniper with ambitions in his unit,” Danny snapped instead of shooting. She was so very tired. Perry laughed, making Danny feel even worse.

“We only met the once,” Perry paused to offer Danny a hand up. Danny took it and cried out involuntarily at the pulling against her slashed open fingers. “Sorry. Christmas ceasefire, he brought over hot chocolate and we talked about how terrible we must be to do our jobs. To kill people who didn’t know it was coming. He told me that he comforted himself with the idea that no matter how bad he was, well, his big brother and big sister were so much worse.”

Danny let her arm fall, gun loosely held in her weak grip. “Yes, slaughtering banks full of people makes you an angel compared to me,” she growled. “And my brother has the benefit of being dead to make himself look better.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” Perry’s eyes flicked to something behind Danny. “Ma’am.”

Danny backed away.

 

  
  


* * *

 

 

 

 

Carmilla scampered behind the collection of cars absolutely no one was firing at, figuring that one way or another an escape route would be needed. Regardless of who won, there would be a flight from the law. Even President Hollis needed to beat a hasty retreat, though she would be avoiding the press rather than the few brave straight cops. Carmilla honestly didn’t care who won the battle, only that she lived and Danny wasn’t caught in between the blitz of bullets firing in almost every direction.

Reloading her rifle and checking that her handgun was still safely stowed on her hip, she dared to peek over the hood of the muted brown vehicle Mother arrived in for the all-out war. Shrugging at the immaturity of the course of action that sprang into her mind, Carmilla took one of her knives and stabbed the tyre until it was deflated and beyond repair. The violence of it along with the satisfaction of getting some small manner of revenge against Mother prompted her into somewhat maniacal giggles.

“Careful,” came a low voice from behind her. Carmilla whirled, knife swinging toward the source of the noise. The blade was most of the way to Danny’s neck before recognition sparked in Carmilla’s brain. Danny’s reflexes were still a significant league above hers, catching Carmilla’s arm before any damage could be done. “You know there’s some shady types around these parts.”

Danny said it with a smirk, not relinquishing her tight grip on Carmilla’s arm. She had blood trailing down her face from a shallow cut on her forehead. Carmilla registered that there was also blood dripping from the bullet wound in her own calf, and insanely thought to ask the other woman about when the agony would stop.

“I have heard that,” she replied as something exploded across the quad. Danny barely flinched, though she did relax her hands. Carmilla couldn’t help the small jump her body did when the noise crashed into her. The heat from the fires blasted all around them. “Though the President being in attendance does class up the joint a bit.”

Carmilla kept her face straight for three full seconds, Danny barely lasted two. Before dissolving into further mad laughter, Carmilla had a moment to admire Danny Lawrence free and happy. It was beautiful.

“Don’t suppose you have a plan for getting the hell out of here?” Danny asked after spending an embarrassing length of time composing herself. “Because I haven’t got much further than ‘steal one of these fine vehicles’,” she paused to look over Carmilla’s handiwork, “though perhaps not this particular ugly monstrosity.”

Beaming with pride, Carmilla flipped her knife a few times before tucking it back into her boot. “Mother would hate the idea of her proper little girl driving her car anyway.”

Danny wasn’t looking at her anymore, Carmilla noted with severe displeasure. She was being awesome over here and the giant wasn’t even paying her the attention she deserved. Carmilla did a flippy thing with her knife!

Huffing her annoyance, Carmilla reluctantly followed Danny’s eyes to settle on a bright red convertible car that had the parts of the engine exposed on the sides and crisp, white leather on the seating. Danny was staring at it like it was personally responsible for everything that was wrong with her life.

“That one,” Danny stated, leaving little room for argument. Carmilla studied her in profile, itching to reach out and touch her properly. Kiss her, hold her, god anything so long as it was them and it was close. The burning in her chest was like being thrown onto a fire that could only be sated by the most wanted woman in the country. “We steal that one.”

Danny’s breath caught in her throat when she turned back to Carmilla, taking in the enraptured expression on the other woman’s face. Her eyes darkened, and she worried her lower lip between her teeth. Danny let the small war fade from her awareness. She pulled her arms fully away from Carmilla, giving the doctor some space.

“Miss Lawrence, I would like nothing more than to steal that car with you and fall in love while we run,” she pronounced with a delirious confidence. Danny didn’t try to stop the goofy grin from lighting up her entire face.

“Doctor Karnstein, I believe we are of the same mind,” Danny agreed, holding out a hand for her lover to take. Carmilla slipped her much smaller hand into Danny’s and drew her revolver with one smooth motion. Danny impossibly brightened further. “I can’t wait to love you.”

They ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided which ending to go with. One more chapter and we are done here.


	10. Chapter 10

Danny reached the flashy car first. Carmilla thought they were going to draw all the attention in the world by stealing this one. It was bright red, and there was a herd of wild bulls fighting for dominance waiting to charge at them both once a winner was decided.

Vaulting into the driver’s seat, Danny threw the bag she was carrying into the backseat. Carmilla actually opened the passenger side door, unwilling to test her injured calf with a jump of that size and wondered how long it would take to get their respective pools of blood out of the damn car.

“Had to pick the one with the white leather, didn’t you?” Carmilla bit at Danny while she internally bemoaned the loss of her medical bag in the scuffle. “We’re dumping this soon, right?”

Danny shrugged, wincing at the sudden pain in her hand. Carmilla wondered how she was still functioning with the slash across her fingers. The bandages were terribly done, by herself if Carmilla had to guess. “We can clean it, maybe replace some of it?”

Carmilla rolled her eyes, “what we need is to stop by the medical department, I’ve been fucking shot and your hand is wrecked, Lawrence!”

Danny hissed at the mention of her name, or perhaps remembering how much her hand should have been hurting. Carmilla smiled warmly as she remembered that she had all the time in the world to learn the difference. She shrunk back as Danny sent her a truly venomous glare. “You have met my family now! Do not lump me in with them!”

Carmilla leaned over as Danny finished messing around with something behind the steering wheel and the car sprung to life with a vicious roar. She grabbed Danny’s jaw and tugged her into a desperate kiss. Danny melted, the tension seeming to drain out of her body. Carmilla pulled back when the glass of the store behind their car shattered. A stray bullet or a deliberate attempt to shoot at them, either way it didn’t matter.

“We should go,” Carmilla said through gritted teeth. Danny beamed with pride when Carmilla barely reacted to being shot at, her doctor was finally on her level and it was glorious. “Like, right now, before whoever owns this thing notices.”

Danny saluted, cocky grin settling onto her lips and engine revving. “Where’s the meds, doc?”

Carmilla, unable to look away from the other woman, pointed vaguely off towards biggest of the large Silas University department buildings. No one was willing to share and very, very few people were good enough to get in, let alone the dedication it took to withstand the rigours of the course which usually involved a baptism in fire with a Belmonde Family victim in the morgue.

It was easier to do the mob doctoring from there, most students couldn’t handle the emergency room style surgery, especially the guns that were typically held to the students’ heads while they worked. Not conducive to a calm doctor.

Carmilla had to save Mattie herself. Shotguns were worse than the revolvers and pistols her classmates were treated to in their attempts.

“Sure no one will be there?” Danny asked, reaching out with her injured hand for Carmilla’s own. Carmilla took it, careful not to disturb the bleeding cuts. She hadn’t seen Danny receive the wounds, and would like it if she had a target for the vengeance coiling in the pit of her stomach. “Theocritus did it,” Danny lied without taking her eyes off the road, “not the worst he’s ever done, I’ll get over it.”

The escape to the Medical building went unnoticed by the warring factions,

Danny thanked the stars showing in the clear blue sky that today might be over. That there was just one more thing to run from and then she could be free. Really free, not a drifter but a person.

Carmilla was out of the car and into the building before Danny had stopped completely. Danny let her head fall back, her mind swimming and her throat begging for a drink of something strong. The meds had better be good to keep her focused enough to escape. There was a shot from inside the building that Danny vaguely heard. She moved sluggishly to go help Doc but couldn’t do more than raise her head to watch a man roll down the pristine marble staircase followed by Carmilla casually reloading her gun as she deftly stepped over him.

Gathering what strength she had left, Danny swapped gears and focused on not crashing into a building.

“Don’t suppose you grabbed a pick me up while you were in there?” Danny asked, aware that she was slurring her words.

Carmilla frowned at Danny’s listing attention and focus. She muttered to herself while going through the bag of supplies she stole from inside the professional mob doctoring room Mattie kept well-stocked. The cocktail wouldn’t be kind to Danny’s heart but it would wake her up and keep her alive long enough for them to get away. She hoped.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

“We leave the fucking country,” Carmilla spat, one knee planted in the leather passenger seat. She used the space formerly occupied by the headrest as a base to steady her stolen rifle. Carmilla kept her eyes trained on the road disappearing across the horizon, searching for any of the hundred or so people who would be more than happy to kill them both after a winner of the shootout was declared. Danny snorted next to her.

“I’m pretty sure Lawrence and Sons’ reach extends far and wide along the entire continent, leaving the country won’t help!” Danny had to shout to get over the rushing wind flowing over the truly amazing car. The speed of the thing matched the best her family could produce at half the noise and while keeping the ride smoother than anything any of the Lawrence siblings ever managed back when they could stand to be around each other. “We buy a small island.”

Carmilla blindly reached out to slap Danny on the side of her head, accidentally getting her fingers tangled in Danny’s wild hair as it flew behind her. Danny barked out a laugh and removed a hand from the wheel to aid her poor lover. “With what money, dumbass?”

They drove for long, long minutes before Danny answered. Carmilla barely blinked the entire time, her eyes begged for relief but she was done being protected, Danny needed her to watch their backs so that’s what she was going to do. Danny’s hand slid onto her thigh, squeezing in a reassuring manner, she hoped. “I suggest you look down, babe.”

Carmilla closed her eyes for the first time in what felt like forever, savouring the sensation of Danny’s hand on her body. Their time apart drove her mad with want. Spending so long with just Mattie and a dalliance with a diplomat’s daughter to keep her company left her without the option of seeking out an outlet for the burning desire in her chest for Danny fucking Lawrence. Nothing was quite as exhilarating. Her body swayed towards Danny involuntarily, betraying just how deep she was in with this not-so-drifter.

Flicking her eyes away from the horizon for a moment to take in two conspicuously large and brown canvas bags that were bulging and stretching at the seams. Taking a second to investigate a mirage appearing on the hot asphalt, Carmilla tilted her head in confusion. “What’s in the bags, Princess?”

Danny’s nails dug into her leg immediately and almost reflexively at the nickname. “Don’t call me that, my brother’s call me that,” she hissed through her teeth. “We’re probably clear now, there’s no way they have anything as fast as this monster. Climb back there and take a look.”

Carmilla didn’t like giving up her watch, nor did she appreciate the smirk spreading along Danny’s lips. Far too smug, too pleased with herself. The rifle went onto the backseat, easy for her to access if Carmilla needed to spring into action. Carmilla followed it, stubbing her toes on the smaller of the two bags. It was then that she noticed the car was riding lower in the driver’s side, the bag she accidentally kicked sitting nestled behind Danny. “Please don’t tell me those are even more guns.”

Danny threw her head back in rapturous joy, seemingly not noticing the swerving the car did as she took her eyes off the road. Carmilla was grateful that they hadn’t seen another car for the entire twenty minutes they’d been on the road. “Oh no, Doctor Karnstein! It is so much better than guns!”

Carmilla’s eyebrows flew upward in alarm, her mind landing squarely on ‘explosives’ before any kind of rational thoughts could push the panic away. She knew now that Danny Lawrence was guilty of fratricide and was more than ready to commit patricide to go right along with her original crimes, she had shot her way through the country getting away from her family and their brutally corrupted natures. Being a mad bomber on top her disconnected attitude to killing people and the righteous way she looked at the world wouldn’t shock Carmilla for even the slightest of moments.

She reached out to open the bag, saying her prayers in her head in case the thing exploded and they took a chuck of the countryside with them. The shining didn’t register at first, nor did the colour of the bars of metal in the bag, only that they didn’t look like they could explode, which was good enough for her.

“What’s in the other bag?” Carmilla called, silencing Danny’s half-crazed laughter. “And more importantly, where the fuck did you get a bag of gold fucking bars?”

The madness returned, Carmilla put it down to the stress of her life, made worse by meeting Carmilla herself. “Cash and bullets! All I need to be happy in one easy car, ripe for the stealing!”

“You aren’t goddamn kidnapping me, you great dolt!” Carmilla yelled right back. “What the hell was this all doing in the car?”

The cackling was fully lost to any connection to sanity Danny had left. Carmilla scrambled back into the front seat of the car, unsure of what to do with herself now she was close enough to reach out and touch her lover again. There weren’t any guns pointed at them, and they were the fastest people alive at that moment. She settled herself as close as she could get to Danny’s side, hands roaming and giving what comfort she could. Danny’s face pinched with the strain of her time in captivity with the now fractured bank robbers.

“It’s my father’s car. That’s the bounty on my head, paid in full,” Danny haltingly explained in between bouts of hysterical laughter. “I figured someone should claim it, technically you’re kidnapping me!”

Carmilla judged the road ahead of them to be arrow-straight and the shoulders on either side flat enough. She grabbed either side of Danny’s face and pulled their lips together. Danny’s hands tightened on the steering wheel, hoping her muscles could compensate for her hopelessly distracted mind. She missed her doctor so very much.

Danny was forced to pull away when the wheels spun on the poor traction of dirt rather than paved road. Keeping herself pressed against Carmilla, desperate for closeness, she turned just far enough to keep them on the road and alive. Carmilla sighed at the loss of contact, but agreed with Danny’s sudden sense of self-preservation.

“What do we do with a bag of gold?”

Danny shrugged, “buy an island, buy a town, build you a mansion featuring a medical practice in the middle of some woodlands far, far away. Up to you.”

Carmilla thought about it for the first time since she denied Mattie’s original offer at Silas. That was the last time she thought she had a future to think about. The plan to work for her Mother’s puppet mayor wasn’t an option for obvious reasons. Fixing up criminals without knowing their crimes didn’t have the same appeal anymore. “I hate boats and a town is too much work. Mansions are too big and the last time we were in the woods, you were almost dead from blood loss.”

A long, dazed blink was Danny’s reply. Carmilla’s instincts started sending an alarm to her brain.

“Do you want to know how my Papa taught the three of us kids how to drive? Possibly the only competent bit of parenting he’s ever done,” Danny said in a rush before Carmilla could start to worry. Danny took her eyes off the road to smile charmingly at her Doc. “It’s real easy, promise.”

The doctor couldn’t find it inside herself to argue or refuse. “Fine, you need to rest soon anyway. Those meds won’t keep you going forever.”

Grinning, Danny wrapped her injured fingers around Carmilla’s thigh to encourage her leg to move across the divide between driver and shotgunner. “Your dad taught you like this?” Danny shushed Carmilla’s question.

“We were like fifteen, he mostly did it by yelling,” Danny soothed. “This one makes it go.” She moved her foot from the accelerator to the brake. The car jerked and it was hell on wheels for Danny’s wounds for a moment. “This is how you stop,” she forced through whimpers of pain.

“Danny-,” Carmilla tried to stop her. Danny shook her head violently. “Fine.”

Danny demonstrated changing gears over and over again until Carmilla was sure she couldn’t forget what the engine sounded like when Danny slammed the gearstick around more violently than necessary.

“Don’t remove the knife,” Danny gestured to the knife she’d shoved into the ignition. “Just turn it and it’ll shut off or start up. Okay?”

“Got it,” she eagerly agreed, hoping that Danny would pull over so they could swap. “Why is my leg here?”

“Because I missed it and the rest of you?” Danny smirked. Her eyes closed and her body went limp.

Carmilla kicked Danny’s feet aside and gently hit the brakes, shifting gears in jerky motions but getting the car safely to a halt all the same.

“Danny?” Carmilla slapped her gently, bringing Danny back to awareness. “Where does it hurt?”

“Not hurt,” Danny mumbled. “Sleep now, Doc safe.”

Carmilla couldn’t move someone that much bigger than herself. Especially not with her injured leg. She coaxed Danny into the passenger seat as she drifted in and out of consciousness. The blood left on the seat was a heart-stopping worry. Danny’s roughly bandaged hand was bleeding and her white shirt was mostly red. Carmilla grabbed her bag of supplies and went to work.

Danny, in a haze, threaded the fingers on her good hand through Carmilla’s wild hair. “Happy, Doc?”

The question broke Carmilla’s heart. The pale face and dead weight stacked on top of the blood loss and the wounds she knew she couldn’t see. Ripping Danny’s shirt off her body revealed pulled stitches and bruised skin. Sign of a worrying infection as well. Carmilla felt her eyes water and went about removing the wreckage of the world’s worst stitch work with an experienced eye.

“LaFontaine did these, didn’t they? Useless with attention to details,” she said instead of screaming in frustration. “No wonder they broke.”

“Doc!” Danny couldn’t raise her voice. Carmilla understood that she was trying. “Drive. Free. Happy.”

Each word seemed to cost Danny a breath and a beat of her heart. Carmilla wasn’t going anywhere until she was stabilised.

“Let me re-do these, then we can go.”

Danny moaned in protest and lost consciousness.

 

  
  


 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

  
“Ma’am,” Perry saluted smartly. The blonde woman nodded and appraised Danny with an attention to detail she did not like one bit. “The target is secure.”

“I see that, Lieutenant,” the woman replied, amazed by the restrained criminals. “Is that-?”

“President Hollis will be glad to know her little science problem has been dealt with,” explained Perry, pointedly not looking at the unconscious form of her oldest friend. “They will smooth things over with the locals and sooth the pain at Junior being caught over the border.”

Danny’s assessment of herself shot back up. The Lieutenant hadn’t eaten her for breakfast and Danny Lawrence was taking that as a narrow win. Still, curiosity burned.

“Baby Hollis is worth hundreds of bodies?”

“If caught, I would be summarily executed at the behest of my government putting pressure on the locals,” was what she got in return.

“Can’t have an agent caught behind enemy lines and live to tell about it,” the woman chimed in. Men appeared behind her and moved to haul Perry’s supposed friends away. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

Danny really looked at her, willing a name to present itself. Lawrence Christmas parties were great for meeting foreign dignitaries and government types from the neighbouring nations. “The new most intimidating person I’ve ever met?”

“Ma’am, if I may?” Perry stopped her boss from ordering Danny dead. The woman nodded. “This idiot was shot, more than once. Recently. You’ll note the blood she’s ignoring because she’s got better things to be doing. This threat won’t exist for much longer, in my opinion ma’am.”

Danny wanted to argue. She would be fine. Eventually. Just had to get away.

The boss looked at Danny like she was deciding between removing a rotten tooth from her dog’s mouth or putting the beast out of its misery. “Is your brother dead?”

“When Papa gets to him, he will be.”

The woman stared into Danny’s eyes, seeing something there that made her sigh. “I believe Doctor Good With Her Hands is near your father’s car, last I saw her.”

The woman left without another word, taking six men and two unconscious bodies with her. Danny turned to Perry before she freaked about this unknown knowing about Carmilla. And Carmilla’s hands.

“What the fuck?”

Perry rolled her eyes. She got close enough to kill Danny and reached to pull the taller woman down so she could kiss her cheek without stretching. “Go get the doctor out of here and then die happy, Danny Lawrence.”

  
  


 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next morning, the headlines say nothing about the remaining Lawrence children going missing simultaneously.

Carmilla walks into the local general store with a gaudy gun on her hip and her hands scrubbed raw. People look at her twice, three times, and decide that they shouldn’t introduce themselves. The aura of power settles on her shoulders naturally. She’s not six feet tall, but she feels it. The proprietor glances down to the gun again and again. Carmilla raises an eyebrow when he notices she’s caught him.

She figured he had strong sons and determined daughters as his suppliers. The wedding ring on his left hand was scratched but clean. Childlike drawings were framed on the walls with varying degrees of talent. Exactly the type of man she needed to see. He kept his attention on her even as his daily newspaper delivery arrived through the back door.

“We ain’t interested in trouble,” he warned with his arm underneath the counter. No doubt grabbing the shotgun if Carmilla was trouble. “And the boarding house is full.”

Pride. One of his children ran it.

Carmilla limped her way over to the counter, leaning on it with both hands in clear view. Being a threat wasn’t making her life any easier in the long run. The man flinched when she went into her coat and slowly withdrew a stack of money. His green eyes watched the bills like a hawk. Carmilla figured he no longer cared about the gun.

A hand twitched to go for hers. Being aware of her surroundings was on her own shoulders from now on.

“Need the day’s news, food for a week, and as much alcohol as that will buy,” she listed off slowly.

Carefully, she left the stack of cash, moved to a sturdy looking wall, and leaned against it with her weight on her uninjured leg. The proprietor considered her offer, flicking to her hand resting upon the beautiful gun every other moment. She knew he was decided if he could get away with shooting her before she got a shot off at him. On her side was the fact that he needed to kill her to get away cleanly with the money.

“Oh,” she exclaimed as if she had only just remembered, “and I need a shovel.”

The boots she wore were splattered with dried mud. The man took that in with the rest of her and decided that she was officially too much trouble than she was worth.

“Any particular type of food?” Carmilla smiled warmly. “I’ll grab some of everything. Nationally distributed alright with you?”

Carmilla pushed off the wall and tried to mimic an older wound with her uneven walk. This was harder than it looked. Should have asked for lessons when she had the chance. “If that’s all you got.”

He ducked in the back to grab the newspaper and set it down on the counter. To avoid touching her. “My god.”

Carmilla knew the news coming from Silas wasn’t going to be pleasant and business as usual for the people nearby. What she didn’t expect was a grown, weathered man with his jaw practically unhinged. The man didn’t even notice her approach. The sturdy paper would be more expensive than a fair chunk of the food and it brought news worth its weight in gold.

Carmilla cringed at the reminder. The bag was waiting for her in the bright red car sitting safely outside of town.

“The President’s daughter,” the man said to himself. Carmilla got caught up on his disbelief, watching someone who wasn’t in the middle of the gunfire and the shattering glass. “She’s-?”

“Dead?” Carmilla cut in, not having the vaguest idea what the cute missing girl had to do with Silas. She presumed President Hollis was there to stop Mattie or Papa Lawrence. There was a neighbouring diplomat who had residences at Silas too. “Found?”

“A traitor,” he spat.

“What?” Carmilla’s cool left at the first hurdle she wasn’t planning on. She snatched the paper and almost cried. The Lawrence name wasn’t even mentioned on the entire front page. It kept going on about Laura Hollis.

President Hollis was at Silas to pick up her wayward daughter from a foreign ambassador. He sent her a covert message that his own government was hiding the girl to make the President look weak. The paper alleged that it was Laura’s idea to destabilise her own mother and take over from the tattered government wreckage that would follow in her wake. This was the news that beat both remaining Lawrence heirs going missing simultaneously.

“Told my missus that girl was out there and a danger,” said the man. He lost interest in the odd woman in his store and started getting her even odder order together. Shovel and all.

Carmilla took the newspaper and went to settle down on the provided bench. The ache in her leg wasn’t going away. She didn’t get to it in time. The slapdash job she did on her own wounds wasn’t her best work. More important things to fix at the time.

The paper mentioned that Papa Lawrence had reported his son missing alongside his daughter. Carmilla had to read three full pages to get to that tidbit of information. Mother and Mattie didn’t even rate a mention in the national news.

The nervous, cold, and long night caught up with her.

Even now, with the dawn breaking over the horizon and the chill of the darkness receding, Carmilla’s fingers were numb and aching. Eyes heavy, focus swimming in and out, she knew she was exhausted and there was nothing she could do about it.

The proprietor left the store, to fetch the shovel from elsewhere she guessed. Carmilla laid her hand on the stolen gun and glared at the entrance until she passed out.

As a rule, Carmilla didn’t dream. Far too heavy of a sleeper to remember them even if she did without knowing.

People around her kept dying. The blur of the dream didn’t let her see specifics, only William shot to pieces. Losing Mattie during her emergency surgeon trials, the woman seemed dead halfway through her attempts to save her. And Danny?

Carmilla’s unconscious body flinched.

Danny was a wave of blood that Carmilla couldn’t stop. She had so many wounds that her body could endure individually with ease. But all of them together?

Excellent emergency doctor she may be. Angel with healing powers she was not.

“Uh, lady?”

Gun in hand, Carmilla stood in one smooth motion. The kid standing in front of her leapt backward and yelped. Carmilla blinked. The gun lowered.

“Sorry kid,” she said while holstering the gun. She pulled her wild hair out of her eyes and hoped the kid didn’t belong to anyone important in town. Shooting her way out wasn’t an experience she was looking to have.

“I’m supposed to help you carry that?”

The dawn had come. Early rays of sunshine lit the store up much better than the gas lamps. The pile of cloth bags were heaped at her feet. The kid was shaking.

“You don’t want to do that, kid,” she dismissed him, panicking at what she would do if he insisted. “Got a twitchy shooting hand and I won’t promise I can stop it.”

The food was in bags she could carry. The alcohol was three large glass bottles of moonshine. The kid had the shovel held across her body protectively.

Carmilla settled her burden comfortably enough.

The young girl watched the strange woman leave the store.

The local sheriff tipped his hat to the stranger that waltzed into his town and spent more money than he would be paid for the month. He didn’t care why she hid how she arrived in their little town, figured it was better to not know when someone came after her. Jilted lover, parents searching for their precious girl, he wanted to be able to tell the truth when they demanded and bribed their way into his office. Saw her, didn’t ask, can’t help you sorry.

Carmilla felt the weight before she was out of sight of the store. How did Danny carry her for hours?

Her heart leapt into her throat and she felt the panic return.

The bright red, distinctive the fear whispered, car came into view behind a cluster of bushes. Carmilla stopped to rest against a tree. The injured leg broke through any determination she had left. Collapsing with the car mere meters away, Carmilla surveyed her immediate future. It looked grim.

“At least I’m not walking to the next town.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh.
> 
> Major Character Death isn't in the tags and the Outrun My Gun series isn't marked done?
> 
> Next story will be posted when I come up with a less stupid one I have now.


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